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OR 



ELEMENTS 



METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE, 



BY A LADY. 



"Prove all things" 
"The things which are seen, were not made of things which do 
"appear." 



HARRISBURG, Pa. 
PRINTED BY HUGH HAMILTON. 



4 



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2j $j 



PREFACE. 



The author of the following little work has no apo- 
logy to offer for having presumed to present it to an 
enlightened public, except the natural desire which 
burns in every bosom to communicate thoughts or dis- 
coveries which seem to itself new and important. It 
has been written amidst numerous difficulties and con- 
tinual interruptions — which it is hoped will excuse 
many inaccuracies, and nothing but an unconquerable 
propensity to such speculations, and a conviction that 
some of its suggestions might promote the interests of 
science, and accelerate the "march of intellect," could 
have sustained the author under the toil with which 
those "subtle and mysterious things" have been laid 
hold on and presented in a tangible form to the reader. 

The author was led to the undertaking in the fol- 
lowing way. Addicted to metaphysical studies, espe- 
cially that of the mind, the existing systems appeared 
unsatisfactory, or not sufficiently supported by evidence 
Endeavoring to investigate the foundation of those sys- 
tems, it was discovered that they were not founded in 
fact, that the principles to which they ultimately ap- 
pealed, were not established in a logical investigation 
of the phenomena of nature ; but rested on a vagrant 
kind of light, or of inspiration, denominated intuition. 
On farther inquiry it was observed, that intuition, not 
unfrequently, embraced error for truth, that what to one 
mind seemed intuitively true, to another seemed intui- 
tively false— that, in a word, the perception of truth is in 



IV PREFACE. 

every case a deduction of reason, and that what seemed 
to he perceived intuitively, or without reasoning, rested 
in fact on some other principle adopted unconsciously 
without investigation. It plainly appeared that the 
pursuit of science, on the principles considered as esta- 
blished in intuition, more frequently led to absurdity, 
and to scepticism, than to a knowledge of the truth. 

In keeping close to the same method, the investiga- 
tion of facts, it was discovered that the criterion of 
truth is a simple phenomenon, or form, in which truth 
invariably presents itself to the mind, and which is ac- 
tually, though tacitly recognized in mathematics, in phi- 
losophy, and in all the arts and sciences as characteris- 
tic of truth, and necessarily connected with it, or as con- 
stituting demonstrative evidence. 

It was farther discovered, or observed, that to detach 
the philosophy of mind from general metaphysics, is not 
the way to cultivate the former with success ; but that 
the metaphysics of mind is intimately connected with 
the metaphysics of matter and of truth ; and that to 
establish sound principles in the philosophy of mind, it 
is necessary to ascend to the very first and simplest prin- 
ciples of metaphysics, to discover the generic character- 
istic of substances, or that which all substances partake 
in common. — The first principles of metaphysics were 
discovered to be facts which are familiar to every mind, 
are continually acted on in common life— but are virtu- 
ally denied in philosophy. What success has crowned 
the labour will be judged of by those who attend us 
in the adventurous excursion, through a region here- 
tofore deemed a trackless and barren waste. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introductory. General Observations on the Nature and 

Objects ot Metaphysical Science, -7 

CHAPTER IT. 
Ot the General Character of Substances, 11 

CHAPTER III. 
Of Material Substance, 23 

CHAPTER IV. 
Of Spiritual Substance, ---- 71 

CHAPTER V. 
Ot the Nature of Truth, - - - 102 

CHAPTER VI. 
Ot the Essence of God, 145 



THE 



ALPHABET OF THOUGHT, 



OR 



ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE, 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY— GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
NATURE AND OBJECTS OF METAPHYSICAL SCI- 
ENCE. 

Metaphysics is the science which investigates effi- 
cient causes, and the necessary relations of things. 

Every one who perceives the existence of substances — 
every one who knows or believes the reality of an invis- 
ible world, is a metaphysician, or has performed that 
metaphysical analysis, through which process alone the 
existence of those invisible objects is discovered. Meta- 
physics then, is as old as the creation; every contempla- 
tive mind speculates on these things. But it is a field 
which, however long trodden, has not yet been cultivated 
to the best advantage ; the ground has never been broken 
up; the seeds of science lie buried beneath rubbish ac- 
cumulating for ages. The first principles of metaphysics 
have not been unfolded ; and it is yet a dispute as to 
what are the proper and genuine objects of the science, 
and whetfier or not any scientific principles are attain- 
able respecting invisible objects. 



8 THE ALPHABET 

An elementary treatise on metaphysics must analyse 
this chaos, and reduce it to order. The iirst business of 
the metaphysician is to investigate the facts, the percep- 
tion of substances, and the belief in the existence of effi- 
cient causes; as the first principles of the science should 
be, the definitions of the several species of these invisible 
objects of knowledge. 

We will not stop here to inquire how the human mind 
originally acquires the idea, or knowledge of an efficient 
cause; we shall discover this in an investigation of par- 
ticulars. — It is a fact that mankind, generally, recognise 
several efficient causes ; and it is a fact that we believe 
certain axioms, or recognise certain necessary relations 
of the phenomena of nature to these efficient causes. 

All the objects of human knowledge — all things which 
have a real existence, may be classed under two heads, 
these are, Efficient Causes and Operations ; or, what are 
the same, Substances and Phenomena. The substan- 
ces which form our world and its inhabitants, are neither 
more nor less than the efficient causes of the phenomena; 
and, in fact, they are tacitly recognised as such by all 
mankind- 
Mankind perceive and acknowledge three specific ef- 
ficient causes, or substances ; which are perfectly simple, 
or uncompounded ; and which are essentially different 
from each other, having no one quality, or no one opera- 
tion in common. These three simple efficient causes are 
denominated Power, Spirit, and Truth. The following 
treatise consists of a disquisition intended to demonstrate 
that these three objects of knowledge are, all of them, in 
the same predicament — that they are efficient causes; 
and that they form the elementary principles of all the 
Substances known to the human mind. But to give 
some illustration of this subject, in^, general way, it may 



OF THOUGHT, 9 

be observed, that there are known in nature three, and 
only three, simple phenomena, or operations, correspond- 
ing, severally, to the three elementary efficient causes just 
mentioned. These three simple phenomena are Motion, 
Perception, and Harmony. These three simple pheno- 
mena, or operations, require each, and to each is actual- 
ly assigned by the common sense of mankind, a specific 
efficient cause ; — and these three simple phenomena con* 
stitute all the varied and complex phenomena of nature. 
This fact will be established hereafter, as far as a princi- 
ple implying a negative is capable of being proved ; but 
to shew at once that the assumption of it here is not so 
extravagant as may at first view appear, let it be remark- 
ed that the words, or artificial signs called verbs, are 
they which express operations, and that all the verbs in 
human language are comprised in three, to move, to per- 
ceive, and to harmonize — and their various compounds. 
Verbs are the artificial signs of operations ; while opera- 
tions are the natural signs of efficient causes. 

The natural sign is that which is properly and strict- 
ly signified by the term idea or image ; it is that by 
which an invisible object makes itself known to the 
mind. Thus motion or impulse is the natural sign, or 
idea of Power; perception is the idea of Spirit, and har- 
mony, of Truth. 

The table below presents these efficient causes and 
their operations, or these substances and their phenome- 
na, in one view, connected as they are in nature,, and in 
fact. 

TABLE. 
Efficient causes. Phenomena. 

Power . . . Motion. 

Spirit .... Perception. 
Truth . v . . Harmonv, 



10 THE ALPHABET 

If any one alledge that there are other simple elemeu- 
tar j phenomena beside the three above mentioned, he 
has only to point them out, and his exception to our 
theory will be supported by fact. It would be futile to 
stop here to answer the objections that will promptly 
arise out of a spurious metaphysics, against our hypo- 
thesis. Each of the simple invisible objects above men- 
tioned, will be the subject of a logical analysis, in which 
it will be demonstrated that they agree, severally, with 
the idea, or characteristic of an efficient cause; and with 
the signification of the word substance. In discussing 
each subject separately, the objections which appear 
most plausible will be investigated. 

The definitions of Power, Spirit, Truth, Motion, Per- 
ception, and Harmony, — or the general terms which de- 
signate these objects, together with the first truths, or 
axioms relating to them, constitute the Alphabet of 
Thought 9 or the elementary principles of all our know- 
ledge. 

Before we proceed to investigate the several species, 
it is proper and necessary to define the general terms ef- 
ficient cause and phenomenon. In the definitions we 
of course give the same signification to the terms which 
is most commonlv annexed to them, but in the axioms 
and corollaries we shall*take the liberty to enlarge on 
those commonly received, so as to exhibit a more ex- 
tended view of the truths implied in, or arising immedi- 
ately and necessarily out of the definitions, or out of the 
predicament of the things defined. 

Definition. An efficient cause is that which is able, 
in itself, to produce an effect, or an operation. 

Corollary. A specific efficient cause is that which is 
able, in itself, to produce a specific operation. 

Corollary. An efficient cause 4s an ultimate cause; 



OF THOUGHT. 11 

for that cause which depends on another cause for its ex- 
istence, is dependent also for its operation ; it is not able, 
in itself, to produce an operation. 

Axiom. Like causes produce like effects. 

Corollary. The same simple efficient cause, produce* 
uniformly the same simple operation, and no other. 

Definition. A phenomenon is an operation addressed 
to the senses, or to the mind. 

Axiom. Every operation requires an operator, or a 
cause which is able to produce it, that is, an efficient 
cause. 

Cor. Every phenomenon is the operation of an effi- 
cient cause. 

Ax. A specific operation requires a specific efficient 
cause. 

Ax. An efficient cause must be present with its ope- 
ration ; — in other words, every phenomenon is the imme- 
diate effect of, and takes place within its efficient cause. 



CHAPTER II. 

OF THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF SUBSTANCES. 

It has been long the practice with writers on General 
Metaphysics, to set out in their discussions and inquiries 
about the general character of substance, with tacitly 
assuming the principle, that substances are no the effi- 
cient causes of the phenomena; that consequently, the 
phenomena have no necessary connexion with the sub- 



12 THE ALPHABET 

stances; aud that of course they, the phenomena, fur- 
nish no logical evidence of the existence, or nature of 
the substances. But while metaphysicians tell us what 
substances are not, they omit to tell us what they are. 
In so doing they have acted like an unskilful general, 
who leaves an unsubdued fortress in his rear; from 
whence the garrison frequently sallies, and renders nu- 
gatory the rest of his progress. In fact, the farther me- 
taphysicians proceed on the above mentioned principle, 
the more they find themselves embarrassed; they have 
adopted without investigation a principle, which, were it 
correct, should be the key to all their future discoveries ; 
they have taken their very first step in the dark, con- 
trary to all the rules of philosophizing; they have relin- 
quished that which should be the first object of the me- 
taphysician, to ascertain, what is the general character 
of those invisible, or metaphysical objects, called sub- 
stances ; or what it is which the mind actually perceives, 
and which we denominate substance. 

A substance is that which subsists of itself, and is the 
subject of modes, that is, of qualities. Or more correct- 
ly, a substance is an efficient cause, or the agent in the 
production of some operation, or phenomenon. There 
is nothing which subsists of itself, or is self-existent, ex- 
cepting efficient causes. In fact, the things called sub- 
stances, are nothing else than the efficient causes of the 
phenomena which attend them; and they are really, 
though tacitly recognized as such by all mankind. The 
proof of these propositions is the main design of the fol- 
lowing treatise. 

It has been common to define substance thus, "A sub- 
stance is that which subsists of itself, independently of 
4i all created beings, and is the subject of modes.'* But, 
with deference, it is no definition at all to tell us what a 



OF THOUGHT. 13 

thing does not depend on, or whence it is not derived; 
we should he told whence it is derived, if derived at all. 
If the existence of the elements of substances depend on 
a creator, — if substances are made of nothing, the fact 
should be established on clear and rational evidence, be- 
fore it is made the ground work of philosophy. If it 
cannot be established, then we are free to inquire whe- 
ther the elementary substances subsist of themselves ab- 
solutely, or necessarily, and in their own nature. 

But let us not be misunderstood; substances subsist 
of themselves in their elementary state, — Power, Spirit 
and Truth subsist of themselves, — and these, it will be 
seen, are the constituent elements of all substance. But 
the existing combinations of substances, all the combina- 
tions which ever have existed, or ever will exist, depend 
on a Creator, There are in fact no other simple substan- 
ces than such as enter into the constitution of God him- 
self; that is, there is no other species, or kind of simple 
elementary substance, than those which constitute Deity. 
It is plainly revealed, that Power, Spirit and Truth be- 
long essentially to God, the only question is, are these 
things substances, essences ? and are they the elements 
of all substance ; or are they only attributes, qualities ? 
But this is a question of pure metaphysics, it is not de~ 
cided by revelation. 

To create, is to combine several substances in one. 
Before the creation substances were in an uncombined, 
or chaotic state ; "the earth was without form, and void;"'" 
it was void of any sensible form, or quality ; yet it "was, 9 * 
or existed. But there is no such thing in the created 
earth, as a substance existing in a perfectly simple state. 
It is a fact known in chemistry, that a simple substance 
passing from one compound into another, carries with it 
a portion of the substance with which it was previously 



14 THE ALPHABET 

combined; and it is known that there are substances 
which never exhibit themselves singly to the senses, 
such are nitrogens, oxygene and hydrogene. It is, 
therefore, not in a chemical, but in a metaphysical ana- 
lysis, that the simple substances disclose themselves. 
Chemistry possesses no criterion of the simplicity of its 
subject; that criterion must be a metaphysical principle; 
as substances are metaphysical objects of perception, 
even while they are subjects of chemical analysis. 

It is a curious fact in the annals of philosophy, that its 
votaries disclaim a knowledge of what constitutes sub- 
stance, and assert that its generical characteristic is un- 
iliscoverable ; at the same time that without hesitation 
they call things by the name of substance, and enumerate 
a variety of kinds; and would deem it absurd to deny 
the substantiality of certain things with which tbry are 
familiar. On what principle are the metals or the earths 
called substances? It may be said these are known to be 
substances by their gravity and solidity. But gravity 
and solidity characterize the species, not the genus; 
Ihey characterize matter, but do not belong to any other 
species of substance. Mind, or spirit is neither solid 
nor ponderous, yet it is a substance. Why is spirit 
called a substance? Why is caloric called a substance? 
it is not known to gravitate. There must be some gene- 
ral idea annexed to the things so called ; there must be 
some known character which includes this class of ob- 
jects, and excludes all others. It would be palpably- 
absurd to call motion, or perception, or any operation 
whatever by the name of substance What then, is the 
signification which is in fact annexed to the term sub- 
stance ? This question will be answered as we proceed. 

There is another remarkable fact to be gathered from 
the annals of philosophy. It is this, that philosophers 



OF THOUGHT. 15 

and metaphysicians, one and all, desiguate the matter, 
and the mind of this lower world, hy the same genericai 
term which they apply to the Being of the Supreme God- 
The common terms substance and essence are applied, 
alike to both. Now if matter is made of nothing, and is 
mot the efficient cause of its phenomena ; and if mind is 
in the same predicament, how can they possibly have 
that substantiality which characterises the great first 
cause ? How can they have the same genericai character- 
istic? If the penetrating minds of philosophers do prac- 
tically feel, or perceive this infinite difference, this entire 
discrepancy between the Being of God, and the beings 
he has made, is it conceivable that they would unani- 
mously agree in classing both under the same denomina- 
tion ? Or does not this fact plainly shew, that they could 
not separate the one from the other, in a philosophical 
arrangement of categories 5 or that, according to the gen- 
eral sense of mankind, the attribute of substantiality, or 
self- existence, is common to the Being of God, and by 
the substances which constitute the world ? 

We cannot prove, in a direct manner, the general prin- 
ciple that substances are the efficient causes of their phe- 
nomena, otherwise than by an investigation of particulars. 
This attempt will be prosecuted in the following chap- 
ters. But previous to this investigation it will be neces- 
sary to inquire into the foundation and authority of two 
principles which have long received the general belief, 
and which are opposed to the general principle just men 
tioned. These two principles are, first, The World is 
made of Nothing ; and, secondly, that The Essence, or 
Substance oj Deity is simple, or uncompounded: or, thai 
G d is a simple efficient cause. 

The connexion of these principles with the subject in 
hand, will be obvious to the reader. It is evident thers 



16 THE ALPHABET 

can be no other efficient causes than those which enter 
into the constitution of God ; that is, there can he no other 
species, or kind, of efficient cause, than those which con- 
stitute the Supreme Efficient Cause ; for an efficient cause 
cannot arise out of, or he created from, nothing. Hence, 
if God is a simple, or uncompounded efficient cause, 
there is then but one efficient cause, in the philosophical 
sense of the term, in the universe. And if substances are 
efficient causes, and nothing else, there is then but one 
simple substance. On the other hand, if the world is 
made of nothing, and substances are not the efficient 
causes of the phenomena, then indeed there may, for 
aught we know, be a variety of substances, or, for aught 
we know, there may be but one; there would be no 
ground for any rational conclusion respecting this matter; 
we could not reasonably infer different substances from 
different phenomena ; and the phenomena of mind, as 
we are wont to call thought and perception, may, for 
aught we know, belong to matter; since on this hypo- 
thesis, the connexion of substance and phenomenon, or 
of substance and quality, would be merely arbitrary. If 
substances are made of nothing — if they are not the effi- 
cient causes of the phenomena, there is then no logical 
evidence, that is, no evidence at all, to determine in any 
case what tlie substances are, and the dispute about the 
materiality, or the immateriality of the mind, is idle. 

The Supreme Being contains within himself the source 
or substance of all possible good. No one will be so 
hardy as to deny this, unless he can point out some, other 
source of good. Hence the beings and things which He 
has created, are either composed of the same substances, 
or essences which constitute His own Being, or He has 
created, from noMiing, beings and things which arc not 
good. But this is wholly inadmissible; it would be im 



OF THOUGHT. U 

puting to God the origin of evil. If God made things of 
nothing, he would make them incapable of evil ; but the 
self- existent, self-sustained elements of substance, retain 
their primitive powers and tendencies in all their varied 
combinations. If evil originates in good, it is not because 
it is inherent in any good thing ; every simple substance 
is good in itself; every elementary efficient cause is 
good ; Power is good, and Spirit is good, and Truth is 
good; but every finite combination of these things, every 
finite mind, not possessing all truth, is liable to err, to 
reject truth. Hence the origin of evil, — hence decompo- 
sition, or corruption, — which begins in mind, in the rea- 
soning mind. Evil is a negative thing, it has no direct 
efficient cause. 

We will not stop to shew, in this place, by abstract 
reasoning, the absurdity of supposing that a simple effi- 
cient cause is capable of producing a variety of imme- 
diate effects, or that a simple principle of operation may 
produce, or exhibit, a variety of operations. Nor shall 
we adduce here any direct evidence in proof of the posi- 
tion, that Power, Spirit and Truth have all the same 
generic character, that they are all efficient causes. All 
that is intended in this place, is to investigate the testi- 
mony from scripture which is supposed to support the 
principles, that God is a simple Essence, and that the 
world is made of nothing. 

The principle that God is a simple Essence, is found- 
ed, or is supposed to have a foundation, in a single pas- 
sage of sacred writ, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God 
"is one Lord." — What is the plain and obvious meaning 
of this passage? Laying aside all pre-conceived opinion, 
and listening to the dictates of common sense,— if she 
may presume to have a voice in the matter, — do the 
words one Lord, sispiifv ore simple Essence? Common 
8 



18 THE ALPHABET 

sense says, No. — King David was one king; yet every 
chemist knows, and every metaphysician knows, that 
king David was composed of several simple essences. 
What, then, was the import of the words, which all 
Israel was called on to hear? Was it a metaphysical 
theory respecting the Essence of Deity, or respecting 
the constitution of His Being? The word essence does 
not occur throughout the whole of the sacred volume ; 
and though its synonyma, substance, does occur in 
many places, it is not used in a metaphysical sense. 

The meaning whicli the passage presents to a plain 
understanding, is this, He who is the God of Jacoh, He 
who sits between the Cherubim, who brought Israel out 
of the land of Egypt, is one Lord, — one King;— one 
Ruler of the universe;— He rules in heaven above, and 
He rules all the nations of the earth. It was evidently 
intended to contradict the heathenish belief, that the se- 
veral different efficient causes, which manifest their ex- 
istence by their phenomena, were each a distinct deity, 
The heathens worshipped Power under the names of 
Jupiter, Hercules, £gc. Spirit under that of Juno, and 
perhaps some others. Perhaps, Minerva, represented 
Truth. These separate objects are discovered by the 
unassisted faculties of the human mind; they exhibit 
themselves continually to common sense, or reason, 
through the medium of their phenomena. But it is from 
revelation alone we acquire the information, that Power, 
Spirit and Truth are united in one supreme Lord, who 
is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 

It cannot be believed that any one who will turn his 
attention to this subject, will maintain, that the passage 
under consideration furnishes any ground for the meta- 
physical theory that is built upon it. It is hard, indeed, 
to imagine how any one could be led to conceive, that 



OF THOUGHT. 19 

there is any connexion between the passage "Hear, O 
Israel/* &c. and the principle, God is a simple Es- 
sence. The text declares, "'The Lord our God is one 
Lord;" and upon this authority it is asserted, that God is 
one simple Essence. Surely the one is an expression 
quite different from the other; one Lord, and one sim- 
ple Essence, are not terms of the same import. King 
David was one king of all Israel and Judah ; yet king 
David's person was a compound of several essences, or 
substances. The body and spirit are different essencer, 
yet they form together but one man. And surely it is 
a perversion of the scriptural text to make it a prop to a 
mere metaphysical theory; for it is not in fact a princi- 
ple in theology ; — the unity of God, and the simplicity 
of His Essence, are two distinct principles; the one, of 
theology, the other purports to be a fundamental princi- 
ple of metaphysics. If the divine historian had given 
us the words one simple essence, instead of one Lord; 
if the passage had stood thus, The Lord our God is one 
simple essence, or one simple uncompounded Being, or 
one simple efficient cause; if the prophet, descending 
from his high vocation to give a lesson in metaphysics, 
had said this, or any words of the same import; then 
we must have submitted to take on the credit of such 
high authority, a principle which we could not reconcile 
to the dictates of reason. But the passage, if taken in 
its plain and obvious meaning, offers no such difficulty ; 
there is nothing in it to tempt reason to revolt ; nothing 
but what is perfectly reconcilable to the principles of ge- 
nuine philosophy. — And surely it is rendering no service 
to the cause of religion, to set her at war with reason and 
philosophy. 

There is no mode of rational interpretation, by which 
the passage of scripture under consideration can be made 



20 THE ALPHABET 

to prove, that God is a simple Essence. But there is 
ahundance of evidence to be drawn both from scripture, 
and from reason, that the supreme Being is compounded, 
or consists of three distinct essences, or of three simple 
efficient causes, which are essentially different from each 
other. The solution of this problem will turn, almost 
entirely, on the signification annexed to the word es- 
sence; which will be the subject of inquiry hereafter. 

We next proceed to analyse the scriptural foundation 
of the principle, that Matter is made of nothing. In- 
deed, this principle has been extended to Mind, or 
Spirit, also, and it is confidently affirmed that All things 
are made of nothing. — It is plain that if the mind, or 
spirit; is made of nothing, it cannot be an efficient cause, 
or able of itself to produce an effect ; if it cannot sustain 
its own existence, it cannot sustain the effects of its ex- 
istence; it cannot be the real efficient cause of its own 
phenomena, or the real agent in thought, feeling, or voli- 
tion. We would not then be accountable beings, nor 
proper subjects of rewards and punishments ; a conse- 
quence which every sober mind must deprecate. — We 
shall be told that the Creator made of nothing the human 
spirit, and then gave it the power to perceive. But the 
power to perceive is the very substance or essence of 
spirit; spirit itself is the power to perceive, — or it is the 
efficient cause of perception. But more of this again. 
At present the discussion will be limited to an examina- 
tion of the passages of sacred writ which are supposed 
to uphold the principle, that the world is made of noth- 
ing. 

It is written, "God made all things by the word of 
"His Power." And again, it is written, "By faith we 
"understand that the worlds were framed by the word 
"of God; so that the things which are seen were not 



OF THOUGHT. 21 

'•made of things which do appear/' This testimony is 
infallible as far as it goes ; what sacred writ affirms, it 
were folly and impiety to controvert, or to evade. It is 
granted then, that the worlds were framed by the word 
of God, or made by the word of His Power. But if 
this means that the worlds are made of nothing, it would 
at least require a prophet to tell us so, ere we should be 
entitled to give such interpretation to these passages. 
That God made the world by the word of His Power, 
and that God made the world of nothing, are proposi- 
tions of quite different import, if we take the words in 
their usual acceptation ; and it seems impossible, by any 
logical alchymy, to produce a transmutation of the one 
proposition into the other, or to make both represent the 
same ideas. There is not a word in either phrase that 
is found in the other, excepting the preposition of 

Shall we be accused of assuming too far, if we ven- 
ture to express the simple language of common sense, 
as to the signification of the above passages of scripture? 
It is not with theology that we would presume to enter 
the lists, but with a spurious metaphysics, which has 
surreptitiously connected itself with theology. That the 
world is made of nothing, purports to be &fact; but 
this fact is not attested in sacred writ, nor is it establish- 
ed on any rational ground. God made all things by the 
word — that is, by the expression, or operation of His 
Power. The words which in grammar are called verbs, 
literally words, represent operations. The words of a 
language are the artificial signs of things ; operations are 
the natural signs of efficient causes, or substances. Thus 
motion or impulse is the natural sign of power; or it is 
the word of power. It will be proved in another place 
that the Word, or the Son of God, is the operation of 
the three-fold Essence, or Efficient Cause, — that is, of 



22 THE ALPHABET 

Power, Spirit and Truth combined in One ; or rather, 
that He, the Son, is the product, or register of this 
operation. God made the world by the Word, or the 
Operation of His power; — He regenerates the world by 
the Word, or expression, or manifestation of His truth, 
"For this cause came I into the world, that I might bear 
"witness to the truth." 

Impulse is the word, or the operation of power, but 
power operating on nothing, impels nothing, produces 
nothing. But power operating on, or within itself, pro- 
duces, or forms itself into a concrete, or solid substance. 
This will be shewn at length. 

St. Paul says, <*The things which are seen were not 
"made of things which do appear." That they were 
then made of things which do not appear to the senses, 
seems plainly to be implied. And if St. Paul really 
had known that things were made of nothing, there 
could not have been a more convenient opening for him 
to have made the declaration in plain terms. But he 
did not make it, and this alone is indirect evidence, that 
the things which are seen are made of things unseen. 

That the world is made of nothing, is a metaphysical 
dogma, unsupported either by reason, or revelation. It 
is thus that a false philosophy puts carnal weapons into 
the hands of theology, who persuades herself that she is 
wielding the sword of the word, while in reality she is 
fighting under the banners of a very different warfare. 



t)F THOUGHT 23 

CHAPTER IH. 

OF MATERIAL SUBSTANCE. 

Matter is that which is solid and ponderous, or mat- 
ter is tli at which gravitates and repels. This is the usual 
way of defining matter. But "A definition strictly and 
"logically regular, points out the genus of the thing de- 
stined, and the specific difference by which that thing 
"is distinguished from every other species belonging to 
"that genus."* According to this, the above definition 
of matter is not logically regular; it points out the spe- 
cific difference, but not the genus. Gravitation and re- 
pulsion distinguish matter from every other species of 
substance, but do not form the character of the genus, or 
of substance generally. Matter, indeed, is called by a 
generical name; it is called a substance ; and it has this 
name in common with several other objects of knowledge, 
— or there are several species of substance actually re- 
cognized by mankind generally 5 and this would seem 
to imply, or rather it does most plainly imply, a tacit re- 
cognition of the generical characteristic of substance, — » 
or of that which constitutes any thing a substance. But 
we are admonished by the grave philosopher, that the 
generic characteristic is unknown, and that the knowledge 
of it is beyond the reach of the human intellect. We are 
told that facts are the only proper subjects of philosophi- 
cal investigation ;— and he who launches into the invisi- 
ble world, with a view to explore its depths, or who ftt- 

* Aristotle. 



24 THE ALPHABET 

tempts to speculate on the metaphysical character of sub- 
stances, is viewed nearly in the same light with the 
alchymist in search of the philosophers stone. 

If it were really the fact, that the generic characteris- 
tic, or that which constitutes substance, were unknown, 
or un perceived by the human mind, then substance would 
be a word without any signification — at least without any 
metaphysical application. But if the generic character 
of substances were really unknown, on what principle, it 
might be asked, are the several species referred to the 
same genus? What is the ground of this classification? 
Why is matter, and why is mind called substance ? How 
does it come to pass, that mankind generally recognize 
certain things as substances? There must be some prin- 
ciple which has the common consent of mankind, at the 
bottom of this classification. 

The only rational solution of the problem is to be 
found in the fact, that the metaphysical, or generital 
characteristic of substance is perceived by mankind gen- 
erally, by the learned and by the unlearned. The busi- 
ness of philosophy is, not to deny this palpable fact, but 
to analyse it, to inquire what is indeed the object of the 
mind's eye in the perception of substance. A logical 
analysis of the fact, that the mind perceives certain things 
to be substances, will detect the metaphysical character 
of substance, because it will discover what it is that the 
mind actually perceives as constituting substance. It 
will unfold and demonstrate the principle, that substan- 
ces are the efficient causes of their respective phenomena- 
and it will shew that they are actually recognized as 
such. And it is a fact, that in all our theorizing respect- 
ing matter, and in all the common transactions of life, a 
specific efficient cause is tacitly recognized as constituting 
material substance. 



OF THOUGHT, &5 

Matter is the efficient cause of gravitation and re- 
pulsion; in other words, material substance is mechani- 
cal power. It is proposed to establish this definition of 
matter in the disquisition which follows. 

It is common to apply the word power to efficiency in 
general, or to any species of efficiency. There is the 
power of truth, and the power to think, as well as the 
power to impel, or to move. But when the word is used 
absolutely, it signifies a certain species or kind of effici- 
ent cause, that is, mechanical power, or the power to 
impel. 

In opposition to our hypothesis we shall be told, that 
though matter gravitates and repels, it is not the real ef- 
ficient cause of these phenomena. We shall be told that 
matter is made of nothing, and that, consequently, it pos- 
sesses no real power, or efficiency, and is incapable, in 
itself, of producing any operation ; that though it is the 
apparent, it is not the real efficient cause of gravitation 
and repulsion. These consequences have been admitted 
on all hands, as flowing from the principle that matter 
is made of nothing; and that matter is not the efficient 
cause of the phenomena, is the ground on which it has 
been contended that matter has no existence. It is aL 
ledged by those who contend for the existence of matter^ 
dial gravitation is produced by a physical, or secondary 
cause, an impression, or impulse, produced ah extra. It 
is believed that this operation, ab extra, is necessary to 
the production of gravitation, because matter, as it is said, 
does not, in itself, possess the power to gravitate. It is 
believed, if we rightly understand this scheme, that the 
uniformity of the gravitation of matter, is maintained by 
the immediate superintendence and energy of the Su- 
preme First Cause, or Creator; and that all the pheno- 

4 



ft THE ALPHABET 

niena of matter are produced in the same way, or that 
God is the immediate agent in their production. 

This scheme implies that the Deity is the only effi- 
cient cause in the universe, and that every operation in 
nature is the effect of a divine volition, and the operation 
of divine power. To maintain consistency, this doctrine 
has been carried into the philosophy of mind also, 
and the Supreme Being is represented as the only effi- 
cient agent in every actiou, or operation, whether intel- 
lectual, moral, or physical. Some have supposed that 
events are produced simply by divine volition, without 
any exertion of power. But it is so absurd to suppose 
that a simple volition can produce the effects that are pro- 
per only to power, that it would be an insult to common 
sense to go about to refute it. That Divine Providence 
controuls and directs all events, is undeniable ; it is a 
fact that is established in revelation and in reason; but 
to suppose that He is the sole efficient cause, or agent, in 
all operations, moral and physical, while He at the same 
time controuls all events, is to suppose Him to controul 
His own operations. It would, in fact, imply the sup- 
position, that the Deity controuls, or that He only sus- 
pends His own operations, when He restrains the actions 
of the wicked. These are the legitimate consequences 
of the principle that the world is made of nothing 5 the 
Deity would be the real agent in all the operations of 
the human mind, as well as in the gravitation of matter. 

Some philosophers, perceiving the absurdity of this 
theory of gravitation, and perceiving also that it dero- 
gates from the dignity of the divine character,* have in- 
vented another scheme to account for the gravitation of 



*It is a heathen maxim, but a wise one, that. We should never make a 
god appear, but on an occasion worthy of a god. 



OF THOUGHT. 27 

matter ; which shall be noticed after a short examination 
of the one already before us. 

<~Let us inquire then. Is it a real fact, that the gravita- 
tion of matter is produced, not by matter itself, but by 
divine power operating upon matter? Has it been ascer- 
tained by experiment and observation, that bodies gra- 
vitate, not by their own inherent tendency and power, 
but in consequence of an impulse produced upon them 
from without? By no means. It has never been observed 
in a single instance that gravitation is produced by an 
extraneous impulse. But it is said, this extraneous im- 
pulse, or some extraneous cause, is necessary to the pro- 
duction of the phenomenon, for that matter possesses no 
power in itself, nor any necessary tendency to gravitate. 
This is a begging of the question ; or, at best, it is a de- 
duction from the principle that matter is made of nothing ; 
a principle intirely without foundation. 

The other theory, above^ alluded to, invented to ac- 
count for the gravitation of matter consistently with the 
principle, that matter is made of nothing, is this, that 
matter, having no efficiency of its own, is endowed with 
the power to gravitate, or impressed with the tendency, 
at its creation. But this is a mere gratuitous assumption. 
And it might be asked, What was the thing that was 
impressed with the tendency to gravitate? It was not 
material substance until it had that tendency; for matter 
is that which gravitates ; What was it then before it was 
matter, or before it had gravity? It was nothing that was 
impressed with the tendency, or which received the pow- 
er to gravitate. It is nothing still if it do not gravitate 
really. And the difficulty returns. upon us, that matter 
gravitates, either necessarily or voluntarily. That gra- 
vitation is a voluntary operation, as it respects matter 
itself, cannot be admitted — will not be believed by any 



28 THE ALPHABET 

one ; that it is the effect of divine volition, and the ope- 
ration of divine power, is equally inadinis sable; — this 
will appear more fully by and by ; — and, if gravitation 
is a necessary operation of matter, if it is the necessary 
consequence of its nature, how is that nature, or neces- 
sity, known to be superinduced, and uot involved in the 
existence of the substance? 

If matter gravitates necessarily, then it is, apparently, 
and there is no good ground to suppose that it is not 
really the efficient cause of gravitation. But if the 
former theory be the true one, that matter lias no real 
agency in producing the phenomenon ; then matter gra- 
vitates neither recessarily nor voluntarily; it is not real- 
ly matter which gravitates. But then, matter has no 
existence that we know; we had imagined that we per- 
ceived matter in its phenomena, or through the medium 
of its operations, but we certainly perceive nothing but 
that which gravitates, really, we perceive mechanical 
power, and nothing else. 

But matter manifests its existence so plainly through 
the medium of its solidity, or its phenomenon refill, 
sion, that it would be absurd to deny its existence, 
even though we give up gravitation as furnishing evi- 
dence of that existence. Is repulsion, then, the real 
operation of matter? Is material substance the real ef- 
ficient cause of repulsion? If so, then, that material 
substance exists, is a logical deduction from the exist- 
ence of the phenomenon. But if matter is the real 
agent in the one case, why not in the other? Repulsion 
is an energy, or operation, of the same species, or kind 
with gravitation, and requires the same species of ef- 
ficient cause ; and if matter is the real efficient cause of 
this phenomenon, why not of gravitation also? But those 
who tell us that matter is made of nothing, are bound to, 



OF THOUGHT. 29 

contend that matter is not the real efficient cause of 
either phenomenon ; or that repulsion is not necessarily 
connected with the substance, any more than gravitation. 
They will tell us that the phenomena furnish no logi- 
cal evidence whatever, of the existence of matter, be- 
cause they have no necessary connexion with it. How 
then do you know that matter exists? Take away gra- 
vitation and repulsion, or take away the necessary con- 
nexion of these phenomena with matter, and the sub- 
stauce vanishes like the "baseless fabric of a vision, and 
"leaves not a wreck behind/' We perceive matter in 
these phenomena; gravitation and repulsion constitute 
the sensible form, or the idea of matter. We have no 
other idea of matter than this ; all other ideas, or sensi- 
ble forms may be abstracted from matter ; but gravitation 
and repulsion cannot. 

The only avenues to the mind, are the senses, and 
the reasoning faculty; in other ivords, every object of 
human knowledge is, either a phenomenon, that is, an 
operation which presents itself immediately to the senses 
or to the mind, or it is an object invisible to the senses, 
and perceived only by reason, or by way of inference 
from the phenomena. We infer the invisible efficient 
cause from the visible operation. But substances made 
of nothing are not perceived in either of these ways. 
This is granted on all hands. A substance does not 
present itself immediately to the senses, like an ope- 
ration; neither are substances made of nothing, perceiv- 
ed by reason ; the operations of nature furnish no logical 
evidence of a substance which does not really operate. 
Nor is it alledged that the human mind possesses any 
faculty of perception, other than reason, sense, and con- 
sciousness.. 



So ri?E ALPHABET 

But we are told, that though wc Lave no logical evi- 
dence of the existence of matter, and though it is not 
perceived immediately, as motion, perception and other 
operations are, yet that it is perceived; we know that it 
exists, for it is a fact that it is perceived. We perceive 
gravitation and repulsion by the senses, but beside this, 
we perceive the substance which gravitates ; or we per- 
ceive something which gravitates and repels; that is, 
we perceive that there must be an operator where there 
is an operation ; we perceive that there "must be some- 
thing which gravitates and repels. "* Very good. 
But this perception that there must he something which 
gravitates and repels, is a deduction of reason ; it is in- 
fering the agent from the operation. Then substances 
are not perceived immediately, as has been supposed, 
but their existence is inferred from the phenomena. 

It is a fact too, that we infer a specific operator, from 
a specific operation ; from gravitation and repulsion we 
infer the existence of that specific thing which we call 
material substance. — If the substance were perceived 
immediately, or without an exercise of reason, there 
could then be no ground for dispute about whether the 
substance which gravitates, be the same with that which 
perceives. If these substances were perceived imme- 
diately, as operations are, the question would be settled 
at once by immediate perception. We never dispute 
about whether blue and yellow are the same, or differ- 
ent colours; or whether motion, and perception are the 
same, or different phenomena. In the perception of a 
phenomenon, or operation, there can be no ground for 
dispute about what the object is ; it is just what it ap- 
pears to be. The case would be just the same with 

*Br. Reid. 



OF THOUGHT. SI 

respect to substances, if they were perceived immedi- 
ately; they would then appear to be just what they 
really are; their appearance would be occular demon- 
stration. 

It is an imperious dictate of reason, that wherever 
there is an operation, there is an operator, and that a 
specific operation requires a specific operator, or a spe- 
cific efficient cause,-— a cause which is able, and has a 
direct tendency to produce that specific operation. It is 
in fact a specific operator that is uniformly inferred from 
gravitation and repulsion, and that is denominated ma- 
terial substance ; for it is undeniable that mankind ge- 
nerally perceive this substance, and that they look no 
deeper, nor higher than the substance itself, for the ef- 
ficient basis of the phenomena. None but philosophers 
of a certain school ever speculate on the efficiency, or 
inefficiency of the substance; and they do not pretend to 
have ascertained the allcdged fact of its inefficiency, in 
a philosophical way ; they have not even investigated 
the metaphysical principle on which their doctrine is 
founded, the principle that the world is made of nothing. 

In opposition to these arguments it will be urged, thai 
ihG substance actually perceived is not the efficient cause 
of the phenomena, but that it is something else, a thing 
which is made of nothing, an inert thing, which cannot 
of itself produce the phenomena. — It is thus that it is 
attempted to reconcile the metaphysical dogma, that the 
world is made of nothing, with the known fact that sub 
stances are perceived by the human mind. It is assert 
ed that we perceive substances ivhich are made of noth- 
ing, and which are not the efficient causes of the pheno- 
mena; and, in conformity with this, it is asserted, that 
the perception of substance is not a deduction of reason. 
These allcdged facts are believed to be sufficient to prop. 



32 THE ALPHABET 

or even to support the whole of the mysterious fabric 
that is reared upon them; among other things, that the 
metaphysical object called material substance is perceiv- 
ed, and yet its metaphysical character is not perceived $ 
that it is perceived neither by sense, nor by reason, nor 
by any known faculty of the mind, j^t it is perceived. 

Facts are stubborn things ; and it is a certain fact that 
we perceive material substance; we are conscious that 
we perceive it And if we are equally certain that wc 
perceive substances which are made of nothing, if we 
were conscious of this, or if we were conscious that the 
perception of substance is not a deduction of reason, 
then indeed there would be ground to contend for the 
nothingness of matter. But is it a real fact that we per- 
ceive substances that are made of nothing, and which 
are not the efficient causes of the phenomena ? Are we 
conscious of perceiving, in material substance, a thing 
which is made of nothing, and which has no necessary 
connexion with the phenomena? Are we conscious of 
jJerceiving that the phenomena are connected arbitrarily 
with the substance; and that, if it had pleased the Crea- 
tor, we might have perceived a material substance which 
did not gravitate and repel ; or that we might have had 
the phenomena just the same, but unconnected with any 
substance, or being, except the Deity ? Certainly we are 
not conscious of perceiving all this ; on the contrary* 
common sense revolts from the doctrine thus carried out 
to its genuine results. When the phenomena of matter 
are addressed to the senses, we perceive that there must 
be a substance, we perceive that the operation is neces- 
sarily connected with a specilic operator, or with some- 
thing which has a tendency to produce that specific ope- 
ration ; and we never dream of the hand of Deity being 
immediately concerned. 



OF THOUGHT, 33 

It is granted on ail hands, that we perceive in matter 
something which gravitates and repels, But if that which 
produces these phenomena, is not, really, material sub- 
stance, but the hand of Deity, then it is the hand of De- 
ity that is perceived — or it is the power of Deity that is 
perceived ; and if we do not choose to call the power of 
Grod by the name of material substance, then there is no 
material substance. There is nothing in the universe 
that does, or that can gravitate and repel, excepting that 
which is able to gravitate and repel, that is, the efficient 
cause of gravitation and repulsion. Nothing but power 
can gravitate and repel; in fact, whatever does gravitate 
and repel, or produce any modification of impulse, is de- 
nominated power. The word poicer signifies, that which 
moves, or impels. These phenomena are, on ail hands, 
referred to power as their ultimate cause; but one party, 
or sect, contends, that there is an intermediate something, 
called matter; something which comes between the cause 
and the effect — between the operation and the real ope- 
rator. But this is a bare assumption ; for this interme- 
diate thing is not, in fact, perceived nor known to exist. 
The thing perceived through the medium of the pheno- 
mena, is the efficient cause of the phenomena; it is that 
which gravitates and repels really; we are not conscious 
of perceiving any thing beside. It is a maxim of the 
Newtonian philosophy, to "Admit no more causes than 
"are true [real] and are sufficient to account for the phe- 
nomena." If matter is not the real cause of the phe- 
nomena, its existence is not necessary to account for the 
phenomena. 

Before we quit this subject, it is perhaps necessary to , 
inquire a little further into this theory of the perception 
of matter. After the adoption of the principle that mat- 
ter is made of nothing, it was perceived to he a-necessa- 
9 



34 THE ALPHABET 

ry consequence, that matter is not the real efficient cause 
of its phenomena ; and that, of course, the phenomena 
could have no necessary connexion with the substance. 
Hence it became necessary further to admit, that there 
existed no logical evidence of the existence of material 
substance; and some pursued this train of reasoning until 
it led to the conclusion that matter has no existence. 
Those who still contended for the existence^ matter, in 
spite of philosophy, admitted all these results, (the last 
excepted j — they acknowledged they could not establish 
the fact of the existence of matter, on rational grounds. 
In truth, if the fundamental principle of this theory were 
true — if matter were made of nothing, it would be im- 
possible to prove its existence— it would be impossible 
to know or perceive its existence. 

But the modern attempt to establish this theory on 
fact, is perhaps the most ingenious, and is certainly the 
most sophistical that has been recorded. Ever since the 
invention of the new organ of investigation by Sir Fran- 
cis Bacon, the induction of facts has been considered the 
only legitimate method of philosophizing. Considering, 
very justly, that the study of metaphysics should be pro- 
secuted in the same method with that of physical science. 
by induction of facts, it has occurred to our modern me- 
taphysicians that the perception of matter should be 
considered an ultimate fact, or a law of the mind, just 
as the gravitation of matter is an ultimate fact, or a law 
of matter. This appears to have been intended as an 
application of the Baconian method in the science of 
Logic, to determine the predicament of a particular fact, 
or to induct that fact into a class; that is, to class the 
perception of matter with ultimate facts. But, unfor- 
tunately for the attempt, it seems to have been forgotten, 
that according to the Baconian method, investigation, or 



OF THOUGHT. 25 

analysis, should precede induction. If the authors of 
this new theory of perception, had analysed the fact — the 
perception of matter — they would not have classed it 
with ultimate facts. But they seem to have considered 
a simple statement of the fact, and of its character, to be 
all that is called for by the method that they profess to 
follow. 

Professor Stewart, of Edinburgh who is the oracle in 
metaphysics, will speak for the whole sect on the theory 
of the perception of matter. On this subject the Profes- 
sor has the following observations. -^"Singular as it may 
"appear, Dr. Reid was the first person who had courage 
"to lay completely aside all the common hypothetical 
tf language concerning perception, and to exhibit the dif- 
"ficulty in all its magnitude, by a plain statement of the 
"fact. To what then, it may be asked, does this state- 
ment amount? — Merely to this, that the mind is so 
"formed, that certain impressions, produced on our or- 
"gans of sense by external objects, are followed by cor- 
respondent sensations ; and that these sensations (which 
"have no more resemblance to the qualities of matter 
"than the words of a language have to the things they 
"denote) are followed by a perception of the existence 
"and qualities of the bodies by which the impressions 
"are made." The author goes on to observe, that, "for 
"aught we know, the connection between the perception 
"and the sensation, as well as that between the sensation 
"and the impression, may be arbitrary; and that at any 
"rate, the consideration of these sensations, which are 
"attributes of mind, can throw no light on the manner in 
"which we acquire our knowledge of the existence and 
"nature of bodies. And though, by the constitution of 
"our nature, certain sensations are rendered the constant 
"antecedents of our perceptions, yet it is just as difficult 



36 TtJK ALPHABET 

"to explain how our perceptions are obtained by their 
"means, as it would be upon the supposition, that we 
"were all at once inspired with them, without any con- 
comitant sensations whatever/** The Professor else- 
where tells us, that the perception of material substance, 
or "thg belief in the existence of the material world/' is 
a 'fundamental law of human belief "\ 

Professor Stewart and Dr. Reid are intitled to much 
credit for having had the candour to "exhibit the diffi- 
culty in all its magnitude/' instead of pursuing the 
beaten track, and -jMfr inquiring how our sensations and 
ideas are connected with a substance which is made of 
nothing; or in what manner the mind acquires a know- 
ledge of such substance. But it is strange that such 
minds should still have been so shackled by the false 
principle, that matter is made of nothing and has no 
necessary connexion with the phenomena; it is strange 
that the very nature and magnitude of the difficulty did 
not lead them to analyse the subject, and to shake off 
their chains by a detection of the fallacy. Men of tran- 
scendent talents, professing to reject, as spurious, every 
thing which did not come supported by established fact, 
yet voluntarily, and without an investigation of its evi 
dence, binding themselves down to a principle, which, 
like the stone of Sisyphus, is continually dragging them 
down again from the summit which seemed to beckon 
their ascent. 

The professor proposes to himself to "lay aside all 
the common hypothetical language concerning percep- 
tion, and to exhibit a plain statement of the fact." This 
fact is expanded into a pretty long paragraph; though 

^Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, pages 86, 87, first vol 
Amer. ed. 
fVol. 2, p. 55, Ne^rYork ed. 



OF THOUGHT. 37 

all that is really fact, may be expressed in a short sen- 
tence. "Certain impressions produced on our organs 
"of sense, are followed by correspondent sensations ; 
"and these sensations are followed by a perception of 
"the existence and qualities of the bodies by which the 
"impressions are made." These few words, and they 
are sufficiently prolix — express the, whole of the fact ; 
the remainder of the paragraph is hypothetical. And 
we are compelled to observe, that ihvfact is stated in- 
correctly ; there is a radical error contained in it, which 
it is necessary to have corrected, belftre it be received as 
a principle in philosophy; "the sensation is" not uni- 
formly or necessarily "followed by a perception of the 
"existence and qualities of the bodies by which the im- 
"pressions are made." The mind is not "so formed," 
that the impression on the external organ is necessarily 
followed by a perception of the bodies which make the 
impression. The author's "statement of fact," as he 
terms it, assumes the very point in dispute, that the per- 
ception of substance is not a deduction of reason ; but 
that "by the constitution of our nature," the impression 
on the external organ is followed by a perception of the 
bodies by which the impressions are made.-— If it be a 
truth, that the impression and sensation are uniformly 
followed by a perception of the existence and qualities of 
the bodies which make the impression, if in persons in 
capable of reasoning, that perception uniformly follows 
the impression and sensation, then that perception is not 
a deduction of reason, it is net an inference from the im- 
pression. But let us analyse the "'fact," and see whe* 
ther it is as the author has conceived and has stated it. 

It is a pretty plain fact, that "impressions produced on 
"the external organs of sense, are followed by corre- 
f spoadent sensations " — And yet this fact is not so plain 



He 



38 THE ALPHABET 

and simple, as it may appear at first view, or as the 
author seems to have conceived it to be. He states, not 
merely, that the impression is followed by a sensation — 
but that "the impression is followed by a correspondent 
"sensation." He says, moreover, that "'these sensations 
"have no more resemblance to the qualities of matter, 
"than the words of a language have to the things they 
"denote." The correspondence then, of the sensation 
to the impression, is a mere arbitrary correspondence, 
like that of the words of a lansjuasre to the things thev 
denote. But if this^ue so, the author should have re- 
vealed the manner in which we acquire a knowledge of 
the impression, or of the qualities of body ; for if the 
sensation has no necessary connexion with the impres- 
sion, if the sensation is not the effect, of which the im- 
pression is the exciting cause; then it will be just as dif- 
ficult to explain how we come by a knowledge of the im- 
pression, as how we acquire a knowledge of the body 
which makes the impression. If the sensation is only 
the arbitrary sign of the impression on the external or- 
gan, as words are, of the things they denote, how 
do we learn the signification of the sign? how do we 
know that there is an impression ? the sensation is the 
only sign, or the only notice we have of the impression ; 
and if it is an arbitrary sign, and has no necessary con- 
nexion with the impression, how do we learn the exist- 
ence of the impression? Arbitrary signs have no natural 
or necessary relation to the things they denote; the words 
of a language convey no intelligence, until we have 
learned their signification, by comparing them with the 
things signified. But how shall we compare the sensa- 
tion within the mind, (which is perceived by conscious- 
ness,) with the impression without, which is not perceiv- 
ed by consciousness, and of which we know nothing. 



OF THOUGHT. 39 

until we learn its existence through the medium of the 
sensation. We know nothing of the impression, unless 
the sensation is the evidence of its existence. 

But what is the fact ? is the connexion of the sensa- 
tion with the impression, an "arbitrary'* connexion? 
Bodies, or material substances produce certain impres- 
sions on the external organs of sense. These impres- 
sions are the same that are called the phenomena, or the 
sensible qualities of bodies, though the Professor does 
not seem to have identified in his own mind, the "quali- 
fies of matter," and the "impressions produced on the 
"external organs of sense." Matter has no qualities but 
those which are addressed to the senses. For example, 
solidity, or repulsion is a quality of matter ; and repul- 
sion produced on the organ of sense, is the "impression 
"produced on the organ of sense." The "qualities of 
"matter" then, are ihe same with the "impressions pro- 
"duced on the organs of sense by external objects." But 
what is the sensation which follows the impression ? It 
is simply the perception of the impression; or rather, 
it is the perception of the change, or configuration, pro- 
duced within the organ by the impression. When a 
hard body is held in the hand, the repulsion of that body 
produces a compression within the organ of feeling; the 
organ, or nerve, is conscious, or sensible of this com- 
pression ; or it perceives the compression ; this is the 
sense, or sensation of hardness, or of solidity; it is the 
perception of the impression, or quality of matter. It is 
thus that the sensation corresponds to the impression ; 
it is the perceptiou of the impression; this is not an ar- 
bitrary correspondence ; it is the correspondence of cause 
aud effect, for the impression is the exciting cause of the 
sensation. 



to THE ALPHABET 

It certainly does appear to the common sense of man 
kind, that there is a natural and necessary connexion be 
tween the impression on the organ of sense and the sen 
sation which follows; and that the sensation is the cos 
nizance, or the perception, of the impression. The way 
in which we obtain a knowledge of a substance and its 
qualities, is to apply it to the senses. But the Professor 
says, "the consideration of these sensations, which are 
"attributes of mind, can throw no light on the manner in 
"which we acquire our knowledge of the existence and 
"nature of bodies." And it is true that sensation, ah 
stracted from its object, and considered only as it relates 
to the mind, will afford no light on this subject; but there 
is no such thing, in fact, as abstract sensation ; eve»y 
sensation has an object, or exciting cause, as well as a 
subject, or an efficient cause. The mind is the efficient 
cause and subject of the sensation ; but the impression on 
the organ is the exciting cause and object of the sensa- 
tion; — and our sensations differ from one another, only 
according to the differences of the exciting causes. Thus 
it is in considering our sensations in relation to their ex 
citing causes, that we derive the light which explains the 
perception of substances ; for when we have discovered 
the impression through the medium of the sensation, we 
are then naturally led by reason to perceive, that there 
must be something which makes the impression — that 
there must be a substance, or an efficient cause of the 
impression. Our sensations correspond to the secondary 
qualities of matter, in the same way that they do to the 
primary, to solidity and gravity. This will be the sub- 
ject of some further consideration by and by. But to 
return. 

It is a fact, that 6 'impressions produced on our organ* 
'•'of sense, are followed by corresponding sensations : ami 



OF THOUGHT. 41 

'Hnese sensations are followed/ 7 sometimes, "by a per- 
••ception of the existence and qualities of the bodies by 
"which the impressions are made." But, we submit the 
question, Is it the fact, that the impressions are uniform- 
ly followed by a perception of the existence and qualities 
of the bodies by which the impressions are made? Do 
infants perceive substances as soon as the impressions 
are produced on their organs of sense ? Do infants per- 
ceive at all the existence and qualities of the bodies by 
which the impressions are made ? There is reason ttf 
believe that infants have no conceptions of any thing be- 
yond their own ideas and sensations ; they certainly have 
no conceptions whatever of the impressions produced on 
their organs, until they have acquired that knowledge by 
frequent experiment and observation. 

If impressions produced on the organs of sense, were 
uniformly followed, by a perception of the substances' 
which make the impression, then the perception of mat- 
ter would appear to be altogether unaccountable ; for it 
is evident that the impression has no tendency to pro- 
duce the perception of matter, unless it be addressed, as 
evidence, to a reasoning mind ; and it is equally evident, 
hat the mind has no innate tendency to perceive matter. 
if the mind were originally "so formed," as to perceive 
substance whenever an impression is produced on the 
organ of sense, then it should perceive matter as soon as 
it exists, for impressions from external objects are con- 
tinually presenting themselves. As soon as matter ex- 
ists, it gravitates ; — and as soon as mind exists, it per- 
ceives. As soon as there is life, impressions produced 
on the external organs of sense will be felt, or perceived. 
As soon as a sensative organ exists, it feels, or perceives 
the changes, or vibrations produced within itself by the 
impressions of external objects. Tt is true, then, that 
G 



42 THE ALPHABET 

impressions produced on the organs of sense, are follow- 
ed by perception, or feeling; but not always by a per- 
ception of the substance or fTody, which makes the im- 
pression. Perception then, simple perception is a law 
of mind; whenever mind is excited, or acted on, it 
perceives; that mind perceives, is an ultimate fact 
which cannot be accounted for; that is, we cannot give 
a reason for it, we cannot tell why mind perceives, any 
more than we can tell why matter gravitates. We can 
only say, it is the nature of the one to gravitate, and of 
the other, to perceive. But we cannot with equal pro- 
priety say, that it is the nature of mind to perceive mate- 
rial substance, or any particular object. The mind has 
an innate tendency to perceive, but it has no innate ideas, 
or particular perceptions. Perception is its own; but 
ideas, or impressions, come to it from without. 

The gravitation of matter is an ultimate fact ; it is a 
fact which cannot be accounted for, that is, we cannot 
give a reason for it; it is a universal law of nature, that 
matter gravitates. And it has been conceived, that by 
representing the perception of matter as an ultimate 
fact, or a law of the mind, that the whole difficulty re- 
specting the perception of matter, would be obviated : 
that if it is a laiv of the mind to perceive substances 
which are made of nothing, no farther account of the 
matter could reasonably be demanded. But the percep- 
tion of matter is not an ultimate fact, as we have seen — - 
it is not a universal law of mind, the perception oj mat- 
ter, is by no means a parallel to the gravitation of mat- 
ter. The two facts are quite dissimilar, in a logical as 
well as in a philosophical point of view. That matter 
gravitates, and that mind perceives, are facts precisely 
analogous, in a logical sense, they are both ultimate 
facts ; the one is a universal law of matter, the other, of 



OF THOUGHT, 43 

mind. But that mind perceives material substance, is 
quite a different species of fact. Perception relates to 
mind, in the same way that gravitation relates to matter ; 
these are necessary relations ; but the perception of mat- 
ter has no necessary relation either to mind, or to mat- 
ter; yet it relates to both; to matter, as its exciting 
cause and object; and to mind as the efficient cause of 
perception. That mind perceives, is a general fact, and 
it is a' fundamental principle of metaphysical science; 
but that mind perceives matter, is a particular instance 
of that general fact. The efficient cause of perception 
is every where the same, nothing but mind, or spirit, 
perceives ; hence the relation of perception, to mind, is 
a necessary relation ; but perception is excited by an in- 
finite variety of objects, or exciting causes, which arc 
foreign to the mind, but incidentally come in contact 
with it; hence the relation of perception to its object is 
an incidental relation. 

Before we have done with this subject, we shall essay 
to trace the process in which the mind discovers the ex- 
istence of material substance. In the mean time we will 
endeavor farther to illustrate the position, that Power is 
tlie substance of matter, and the efficient cause of gravis 
tatiou and repulsion. 

It may be alledged, that though it we^re admitted that 
Power is the substance of matter, still this would not re- m 
move the difficulty respecting the gravitation of matter; 
it would not account for the phenomenon, without a recur* 
rence to mind as the ultimate cause. It will be asked, 
Why does matter gravitate ? Supposing the substance 
of matter to be Power, why should power uniformly act 
toward a center ? Why should the most distant bodies 
approach, or be deflected toward each other? Power 
possesses no faculty of choice; matter an4 power, are 



44 THE ALPHABET 

alike incapable of choosing in what direction to act, or to 
what end. How then can it be accounted for, that mat- 
ter uniformly gravitates, or acts toward a center of gra- 
vity, unless this direction is given it by mind, unless this 
phenomenon is produced by the power and influence of 
the supreme first cause, the divine mind ? 

This appears to be the grand difficulty. Yet it is not 
thought necessary, to inquire, Why does matter repel ? 
or why is it solid ? It seems to be universally admitted, 
that repulsion is inherent in the substance. Yet repul- 
sion is an operation of power, as well as gravitation ; it 
is an energy of the same kind, and requires the same ef- 
ficient cause ; and if matter is not the efficient cause of 
repulsion, this phenomenon is as hard to be accounted 
for, as gravitation. It is conceived, that as matter gra- 
vitates uniformly, that uniformity must be the effect of 
volition somewhere, and be produced by mind. Some 
philosophers have attributed that volition to matter itself, 
and the material world was believed to have a soul. 
But the more enlighted moderns perceive that matter 
does not act voluntarily; yet they have fallen into the 
opposite error, in supposing that matter is in its nature 
a clog to our volitions, and to pur intellectual enjoy- 
ments. All, however, who deny that matter has a soul, 
and acts voluntarily, attribute the phenomena to the di- 
vine will and power. 

But gravitation is not the effect of volition any where. 
Gravitation is not a voluntary, but necessary operation 
of matter ; contraction is not a voluntary, but a necessa- 
ry operation of power. Contraction is the modus ope-, 
randi of power; it is the primary operation, or that by 
which every modification of motion, or impulse, is ori- 
ginated. Sir Isaac Newton tells us, that "Every parti- 
ble of matter is continually deflected toward every other 



OF THOUGHT. 45 

-particle of matter." Matter uniformly gravitates, or 
power uniformly contracts, simply because this operation 
is not voluntary, but necessary ; because power has no 
choice, nor a capacity to originate motion in any other 
way. Mind can no more than matter, choose before 
hand, whether it shall, or shall not, perceive — nor what 
it shall perceive. The appropriate operation of an ef- 
ficient cause, cannot be varied even by that cause ; much 
less is it to be controuled, or produced by any foreign, 
or extraneous cause. Mind or spirit, is in the same pre- 
dicament with matter, in this respect ; it is its nature to 
produce a specific operation; it perceives necessarily, 
and has no choice or direction in the matter. For this 
reason, the simple spiritual substance * cannot choose at 
any time, whether its operation shall be perception, or 
nome other phenomenon; its operation is perception 
necessarily; it has no power to originate motion. The 
supreme mind cannot choose— let it be spoken with re- 
verence—whether He shall, or shall not know, or per- 
ceive; He perceives necessarily; Spirit is a constituent 
element of His Being, or Essence; and Spirit is the ef- 
ficient cause of perception. The J)eity can no more 
cease to perceive, ttyan he can cease to exist. 

Gravitation or contraction, or the approach of the parts 
toward each other, is the mode, or manner in which 
power operates; it is tlje mean through which power 
produces all its more remote effects,, or by which it ori- 
ginates every degree and modification of motion or im- 
pulse. This fact we have exhibited before our eyes 
continually; and though it may never have been stated 
in terms, it is continually acted on in mechanical opera- 
tions. If an arm is bent, or drawn toward the body, ii 
is by means of contracting the muscles of the fore-side 

* That which is called mind, is a compound of power and spirit, 



46 THE ALPHABET 

of the arm ; if it is stretched out, it is by contracting the 
antagonist muscles. If a great force is to be exerted, it 
is to be by concentrating the force, or contracting the 
muscles, perhaps of the whole body. In all machinery, 
the principle of motion is the same, and is recogn ized in 
the construction; the force produced is by means of a 
contraction, somewhere ; it is either by gravitation, as the 
falling of water, or the preponderance of a weight ; or it is 
produced by animal power, the operation of which al- 
ways originates in contraction. 

Contraction then, is the mode, or manner in which 
power operates ; it follows, that this operation is not the 
effect of volition, not even of divine volition ; it is the ne- 
cessary operation of power. But contraction, or gravi- 
tation, is the mode or manner in which matter operates ; 
it is the universal law of matter, as well as of power. It 
follows, that material substance and power, are one and 
the same. 

But it is the general belief, that Mind, or Spirit, is the 
ultimate cause of gravitation, and of every modification 
of force, or impulse. Notwithstanding this, it will be 
readily granted, that power is necessary to the produc- 
tion of impulse ; that when mind impels, or originates 
motion, it is by means of power ; and that, without 
power, mind is incapable of producing impulse. Power 
then is necessary to the production of impulse ; and it 
appears too, that it is able to produce impulse, and the 
only thing that is able to produce this phenomenon, for 
mind without power, is not able to impel. But that 
which is necessary to a specific operation, and is able to 
produce that operation, is the efficient cause of that 
operation. 

Still it will be contended, that power is an attribute of 
Mind ? and not an independent efficient cause, that Mind 



OF THOUGHT. 47 

or Spirit is the ultimate efficient cause of all things. The 
principle, that Poiver is an attribute, shall be inquired 
into again ; at present we will consider whether or not 
the mind, or spiritual substance, is the efficient cause of 
gravitation and repulsion. If mind, or the spiritual 
substance, be the efficient cause of gravitation and repul- 
sion, it must produce these phenomena either immediate- 
ly, or mediately. If mind is the immediate cause of 
gravitation and repulsion, then it is mind which gravi- 
tates and repels, or mind is solid and ponderous. But 
this is absurd ; it is confounding things which are essen- 
tially different; for gravity and solidity, or gravitation 
and repulsion, are the characteristics of matter, and dis- 
tinguish matter from mind. But if mind produce gravi- 
tation and repulsion mediately, or by a previous opera- 
tion produced upon matter from without, that previous 
operation must be some modification of motion or im- 
pulse; it must be an operation of the same kind with 
that to be produced by it; for neither perception nor vo- 
lition have any tendency to produce, either primarily, or 
secondarily, the appropriate operation of power; to sup- 
pose that they could do so, would be utterly to confound 
all our ideas of cause and effect. But that previous im- 
pulse must be, either the immediate operation of mind — 
which involves the same absurdity we just exploded — or 
it must be the effect of another previous impulse — and 
that of another, and so on ad infinitum. But this is 
equally absurd with the former alternative. So it ap- 
pears, that on whatever principle Spirit is supposed to 
be the efficient cause of impulse, it implies an absur- 
dity. 

Since jfie spiritual substance is not the efficient cause 
of gravitation, it follows, that Power is the sole cause 
of this phenomenon ; there is no other cause concerned 



48 THE ALPHABET 

in its production. If power is the efficient cause of 
gravitation, then material substance is the efficient cause 
of gravitation; or material substance is the power to 
contract, or to gravitate. The efficiency of material 
substance is tacitly admitted in all our reasonings re 
specting bodies, and in the uses we apply them to. Do 
not the walls of our houses repel the storm ? Does not 
the floor sustain our weight ? Perhaps it will be said, 
that matter is an instrument employed by presiding 
Deity for this and other purposes, and that it is nothing 
more. Be it so. But must not a thing possess somr 
power, or efficiency, to fit it for being an instrument ? 
Must not that which is employed to repel, possess the 
power to repel? If it do not, it can have no instrumen- 
tality in producing the effect. And if matter has no real 
instrumentality, no real efficiency, it is absurd to sup 
pose it employed as an instrument. And in this case, 
why should it be supposed to exist ? The phenomena 
would be just the same without it. The repulsion of 
the storm, the reflection of light; the suspension of our 
bodies some thousand of miles above the center of gra- 
vity, (if bodies we certainly have;) these phenomena 
are the real operations of power, and if material sub- 
stance is not that power, if it do not really produce and 
sustain these phenomena, what office does it perform? 
What part does it sustain? 

There is nothing really substantial excepting efficient 
clauses. That matter is the real efficient cause of its 
phenomena-— that is, of gravitation and repulsion; its es- 
sential phenomena is implied in Hie language, both of 
the learned and the unlearned. We may confidently 
appeal to the common sense of mankind, are the pheno- 
mena, gravitation and repulsion, exhibited to the senses 
by matter, or are they exhibited by mind? Bj matte 



OF THOUGHT, 49 

certainly, it will be replied, and not by mind. Is mat- 
ter necessary to their exhibition, or are they sometimes 
exhibited by something else, independently of matter? 
Undoubtedly matter is necessary to their exhibition; 
there is nothing but matter that gravitates and repels ; 
and whatever gravitates and repels, is matter. Can 
matter exist without exhibiting these phenomena, or 
without solidity and gravity? No, it cannot; it gravi- 
tates continually and necessarily ; that which does not 
gravitate, is not matter. Then matter is necessary to 
the production of these phenomena, and it is adequate to 
their production, for it cannot exist without producing 
them; in other words, matter is the efficient cause of 
gravitation and repulsion. 

But there are still objections to this doctrine, which it 
is necessary to investigate. It is confidently asserted, 
that Power is an attribute of mind; and it is consider- 
ed a self-evident truth, that Power cannot he without a 
subject. These assertions have an imposing aspect; 
the first is in the form of a definition; and the last, of 
an axiom, or an intuitwe truth. That Power cannot 
be without a subject, is one of those principles, which, 
before the time of Mr. Locke, were called, innate ideas; 
and which at the present time are believed to be per- 
ceived intuitively, or which Professor Stewart terms 
"fundamental laws of belief." But truths are not per- 
ceived in this way, as will be shewn hereafter. To be 
convinced that the above axiom, Power cannot be .with- 
out a subject, is not perceived intuitively, but is a deduc- 
tion of reason, we need only observe its relation to the 
definition, viz. Power is an attribute of mind. The 
process in which the mind arrives at the axiom, is as 
follows. If power is an attribute, it follows of necessi- 
ty, that power cannot be without a subject. Here. Uk 
7 



50 THE ALPHABET 

major proposition, that is, an attribute cannot be without 
a subject, is taken for granted without being expressly 
stated, as is frequently the case in metaphysical reason- 
ing. The above reasoning is plausible, indeed the in- 
duction is quite correct; but it proceeds on a false prin- 
ciple, consequently the conclusion is false, although it is 
fairly deduced from the premises. The process would 
be stated more methodically thus, Jin attribute cannot be 
without a subject; but Power is an attribute, therefore. 
Power cannot be without a subject. The conclusion so 
plainly and necessarily follows from the premises, that 
we are apt, in reconsidering or applying the principle 
which forms the conclusion, to overlook both the major 
and the minor proposition, and the whole process by 
which w T e arrive at that principle, and to imagine that 
We perceive it intuitively, or without any exercise of rea- 
son. Yet it must be obvious to any one who considers 
the subject, that the truth of the principle, Power can- 
not be without a subject, depends entirely on the cor- 
rectness of the premises which have been stated, and 
more particularly on the minor proposition, that Powel- 
ls an attribute. It is assumed, that Power is an attri- 
bute ; but this is a false definition of power; consequent 
ly, the conclusion, that Power cannot be without a sub- 
ject, is false. 

If the term attribute have the same signification with 
the word quality, then it canno-t be a true definition of 
power to say, it is an attribute. When a thing is to be 
defined, or when we are about to point out the genus to 
which any thing belongs, it is necessary, not only thai 
the character of that thing be clearly ascertained; but 
also, that the characteristic of the genus to which that 
thing is to be referred, be well understood; otherwise 
the definition may be false, and may lead to false con- 



OF THOUGHT. 51 

elusions, even when we have a just conception of the 
thing to be defined. That Power has been erroneous- 
ly defined, was owing, not so much to the want of a 
correct knowledge of the nature of power, as to the 
vagueness of the generical term attribute. When it is 
said that Power is an attribute, a precise meaning should 
be annexed to the word attribute ; we should not only 
have inquired— What is Power? but we should have 
ascertained with precision — What is an attribute? The 
word attribute is generally used as synonymous with 
the word quality, but it is sometimes applied in a different 
sense. It frequently signifies that which belongs to, or 
is possessed by, some being or thing ; as when we say, 
Man possesses mind, or intelligence. This is attribut- 
ing mind to man, or it represents mind as an attribute of 
man. In this sense of the word, an attribute may be 
either a substance or a quality, for mind is a substance, 
and an attribute of man; and power may be an attribute 
and at the same time a substance, a thing which subsists 
of itself, or without a subject. But in the more strict 
and proper sense of the word, an attribute is some action, 
or operation, or some species of action, or operation, as 
that gravitation is an attribute of matter; thought, or 
perception is an attribute of mind. This agrees with the 
signification of the word quality ; gravitation, or gravi- 
ty, is a quality of matter ; but it does not agree with the 
character of Power. Power is not an action, nor an 
operation of any kind ; Power is the subject of an attri- 
bute ; contraction is the attribute, or the quality of 
power. Yet the principle, that Power is an attribute — 
in the latter sense of the word attribute, or that power 
is a quality, is the foundation of the axiom, Power can- 
not be without a subject. Definitions do neither good nor 
harm, except when they arc made principles of science 



52 THE ALPHABET 

It may be proper, and it may tend to illustrate tlie 
foregoing paragraph, to inquire a little further into the 
general character of qualities. A correct definition, 
either expressed or understood, of the term quality, 
would seem to be a necessary preliminary to the deter- 
mination, respecting any particular object, whether or 
not it be a quality. Quality is a term which has ac- 
quired a considerable latitude; to discover what is its 
radical signification, we should proceed by an investiga- 
tion of particulars. Gravity and solidity will be allow- 
ed on all hands to be qualities, in the strictest sense of 
the word. W4|at is gravity? and what is solidity? 
Gravity has been defined, a tendency to gravitate ; or a 
power to gravitate. But this latter has been exploded; 
modern philosophers affirin, that matter possesses no 
power to gravitate. We have, in fact, no knowledge of 
a power to gravitate, different from the substance, or that 
which actually gravitates. Power is not an attribute. 
Material substance is itself the power to gravitate, or the 
power to contract ; the efficient cause of gravitation, is 
the only power to gravitate. There is no such thing as 
a quiescent tendency, or power, to gravitate ; the actual 
operation, and the efficient cause of the operation, which 
cannot cease to operate, are the only real objects of 
knowledge ; gravitation, and that which gravitates, are 
all that we know of, or belonging to, material substance. 
Whatever has a real existence belongs to the one or the 
other of these two genera ; it is either an efficient cause, 
or the operation of an efficient cause. Perhaps it is not 
strictly proper to say, that an operation exists; but ope- 
rations are certainly real, and they are vecessary too. — 
The idea which is really annexed to the term gravity, 
is that of gravitation, or of the actual force, or deflection 
of one body toward another, (gravity and solidity are 



OF THOUGHT. 55 

the same with gravitation and repulsion; the one and 
the other are called sensible qualities; or qualities per- 
ceived by the senses ; but the organs of sense perceive 
only operations ; they do not perceive latent tendencies 
or powers. This is the true philosophical import of the 
word quality ; a quality is a phenomenon, or an opera- 
tion addressed to the senses, or to the mind. 

If this be the true import of the word quality, then 
power is not a quality, it is not a phenomenon. Power 
is not an attribute of mind. That mind exerts an ac- 
tive power, is an undeniable fact; but it does not follow, 
that Power is a quality of the mind, any more than it 
would follow from the operation of Spirit, that Spirit is 
a quality of the mind. To explain this matter more ful- 
ly, the subject will be resumed ; but we have not done 
with the qualities of matter. Of the secondary qualities 
of matter we shall speak again ; but there are several ac- 
cidents which are considered to be essential and distin- 
guishing qualities of matter, which have no title to be so 
denominated. Divisibility is certainly not a phenome- 
non, or an operation, it is therefore not a quality of mat- 
ter, nor of any thing else. Neither is extension a phe- 
nomenon, or an operation, or a quality of matter. It has 
been generally set down as an undeniable fact, that ex- 
tension and divisibility belong exclusively to matter, and 
that they distinguish matter from mind, or from spirit. 
But this is an assumption without proof; no one pre- 
tends to have discovered by experiment and observa- 
tion, or by any mode of investigation, that spirit or mind, 
is unextended ; but it is one of those principles, which 
get possession of the mind by means of that native love 
of mysteijy which attaches to our natures. Matter and 
Spirit are distinguished from each other, only by their 
phenomena ; Spirit is ^u extended being, as will be sgep 



54 TIIK ALPHABET 

when the subject comes to be investigated. Extention 
is a word of nearly the same import with space. Space 
is length, breadth, and depth abstracted from body, or 
substance; extention is length, breadth, and depth attri- 
buted to body or substance. Extention, signifies the 
space which a substance occupies; space, is extention 
unoccupied. 

Vis inertiw has also been considered a characteristic 
of matter. But the terms contain a solecism. The 
power of inertness, is the power to be powerless. That 
which is obviously alluded to in this expression, is the 
power of gravitation, or the power to resist being mov- 
ed in any direction, but that in which matter uniformly 
tends, toward a center of gravity. Resistance is an 
operation of power; it is a phenomenon of the same kind 
with impulse, and requires the same species of efficient 
cause. This resistance is called inertness, because it is 
not a voluntary action, nor to be overcome by simple 
volition; it is only by organization, or by combining 
spirit with matter, that the latter becomes obedient to the 
will. Matter is morally and intellectually, but not phy- 
sically, inert. The power of inertness is the power of 
gravitation and repulsion; and this power is not a qua- 
lity, but a substance. 

This substance, or power to gravitate, is not perceiv- 
ed by the senses ; but it is perceived by reason ; it is 
discovered in a metaphysical analysis of the nature of 
the phenomena. This analysis is a spontaneous opera- 
tion of the mind, and takes place even in children, or as 
soon as the child begins to observe the result of its own 
experiments, or the effects produced within its organs of 
sense by contact with external objects. In pretty early 
childhood we discover, that certain events, or operations, 
are uniformly succeeded by certain other events. We 



OF THOUGHT. 55 

find by experiment, that by a single stroke we can send 
an apple or a ball rolling across the carpet. In this way 
we acquire the conception of a cause, and of the relation 
of cause and effect. The child, indeed, will not com- 
prehend your meaning, when you talk to him of a cause; 
for he has not learnt the meaning of the term ; but he 
will tell you that he can make the apple roll, which 
plaiuly expresses his idea of a cause. But they are 
only physical, or secondary causes that he first becomes 
acquainted with. In making farther experiments and 
observations, he discovers another kind of cause. When 
he holds a lump of clay or a ball of metal in his hand, 
he perceives that it forcibly presses downward, or to- 
ward the earth; and as often as he repeats the experi- 
ment, he observes the same phenomenon. He observes 
also a powerful repulsion in the ball, which prevents his 
hand from closing. He knows that he was himself the 
cause of the rolling of the ball, or that the rolling was 
produced by the impulse which he had originated; but 
he discovers no external, or secondary cause of the lat- 
ter phenomena, of the gravitation and repulsion of the 
ball. But he has learned from his observations on se- 
condary causes, that every effect has a corresponding 
cause; the gravitation and repulsion of the ball, inusr, 
have a cause suited to their production, and that cause 
must be within the thing whence the phenomena pro 
ceed. That thing must of itself produce the phenomena, 
or it must be the efficient cause of the phenomena. And 
that efficient cause must have a substantial or permanent 
existence, for it never ceases to maintain the phenomena 
or sensible appearance. This is the metaphysical pro 
cess in which, while children, we discover the existence 
of material substance, or the efficient cause of gravitation 
and repulsion. Every mind discovers for itself the 



50 THE ALPHABET 

relation of cause anil effect, and the existence of efficient 
causes; no words, or artificial signs can inspire the 
mind with a knowledge of this relation, or with the idea 
of an invisible efficient cause; we perceive eilident 
causes only through their natural signs, their opera- 
tions. 

But when the child becomes a youth, he learns from 
books, or from his preceptor, that his reason plays him 
false in this matter; that she is not a proper guide in 
philosophy; that there are certain principles, no matter 
whence derived, to which reason must succumb; that the 
world is made of nothing, and that matter is not Vm ef- 
ficient cause of the phenomena: and that the substance 
which he perceives has no necessary connexion with the 
phenomena. — This appears mere jargon to his unsophis- 
cated mind ; for he is unconscious of perceiving "any 
thing in, or belongiug to matter, excepting the pheno- 
mena, and the efficient cause of the phenomena. He 
cannot conceive how the substance can appear to be any 
thing beside what it really is, for he knows that it does 
not appear at all to the senses, it discloses itself only to 
reason, through the evidence of the phenomena. It is 
in vain that he asks for the rationale of the theory pre- 
sented to him, the ultimate appeal is, not to reason, bul 
to the principle— -The world is made of nothing; and he 
is exhorted to believe, on pain of being pronounced a 
dunce and iufidej. And after an inward struggle be- 
tween reason and prescription, he adopts the dogma, and 
enters a labyrinth where the farther he advances, the 
more he is entangled. 

We come now to consider the secondary qualities of 
matter: It is an obvious fact, that there is an infinite 
variety of phenomena attending matter, which yet are 
not essential to it, or necessarily connected with it ; and 



OF THOUGHT. 57 

are therefore called secondary qualities. The pheno- 
mena which meet the senses, are not, all of them, the 
real operations of matter; that is, simple material sub- 
stance, or power, is not the efficient cause of all the 
phenomena with which it is connected. Home bodies 
exhibit phenomena, which all bodies do not, and which, 
therefore, do not necessarily belong to body. Matter is 
not the real efficient cause of all the phenomena which 
attend it; and from this it has been too hastily conclud- 
ed, that matter is not the real efficient cause of any of its 
phenomena ; or that gravitation and repulsion are not its 
real qualities, nor necessarily connected with it, any 
more than the secondary qualities. If there are certain 
phenomena exhibited by some bodies which are not ex- 
hibited by all, we may rationally conclude that these 
phenomena are not essential to body; or that simple ma- 
terial substance does not produce, by its own efficiency, 
those phenomena which it does not exhibit anifoi ly ; 
but we are not entitled to infer, that matter does not pro- 
duce any operation by its own power. There are phe- 
nomena attending bodies, which mechanical power does 
not, and which it cannot produce ; but the legitimate in- 
ference is, that there are other causes present; that there 
are other, or immaterial substances in combination with 
matter; substances which do not contract and repel, but 
which, by producing other modes of operation on the or- 
gans of sense, excite other sensations than those excited 
by contraction and repulsion. And if we shall actually 
find other substances — substances, the phenomena of 
which are essentially different from gravitation and re- 
pulsion; if we should find such substances in chemical 
combination with matter — if we should find spiritual 
substance concerned in producing some of the phenome- 
na which apparently belong to matter — we ought not to 
8 



58 THE ALPHABET 

recoil from the truth, although it may shock our preju- 
dices. Some one has well said, that "We should pur- 
sue truth whithersoever she lead, heedless of conse- 
quences." 

But we shall be told, that it is absurd to suppose mat- 
ter and spirit to be chemically combined. Most people 
are ready to pronounce absurd any doctrine or principle, 
which contradicts opinions which have long held posses- 
sion of the mind, whether these opinions are founded in 
reason and in fact, or are not. To be absurd, is to be 
incompatible with s«Ome known truth, or established gei- 
neral fact. If any established truth or fact, can be 
pointed out, with which the allegation that material and 
immaterial substances are chemically combined, is in- 
compatible, then that allegation is absurd and inadmis- 
sible ; but if no such truth, or fact can be adduced, you 
are not entitled to pronounce the allegation absurd. 

Perhaps this challenge will be met, if not by an esta- 
blished fact, at least by a theory which has long usurped 
the authority of truth. It will be asserted that the spirit 
or mind is an uuextended thing, occupying a point some- 
where in the brain ; that it is therefore incapable of com- 
ing in contact, and consequently incapable of combining 
chemically with matter, which is extended. But on 
what does this theory rest? It is not a known fact, esta- 
blished in experiment and observation, that spirit is un- 
extended; nor is it a fair deduction from any known 
fact. We will not suppose that any enlightened mind 
will pertinaciously adhere to this theory. There is a 
substance well known to chemists, which does not gravi- 
tate; it exhibits no phenomenon that belongs essentially 
and properly to matter; therefore it is not a material, 
but an immaterial substance. Yet it enters into chemi- 
cal combination with all substances; it is caloric, or 



OF THOUGHT. 59 

heat; Its modus operandi is expansion, the reverse of 
contraction. — It will be demonstrated in the next chap- 
ter, that the substance of heat or fire, is neither more nor 
less than the elementary spiritual substance. There is 
another immaterial substance, the phenomena of which 
we shall find blended with those of matter. 

But it will be thought inconceivable, that the opera- 
tions of immaterial substances should affect the senses; 
that they should be seen, or felt, or tasted. But if the 
operations of immaterial substances are not the exciting 
causes of some of our sensations, then all the variety of 
ideas and sensations which we experience, are produced 
simply by the operations upon our organs, of contraction 
and repulsion. But this is much harder to conceive, 
than that the operations of immaterial substances should 
be seen with the eyes, or tasted with the palate, And 
we would ask, Why may it not be true, that immaterial 
substances affect the senses ? What is matter, that it 
should have more efficiency than spirit in affecting the 
organs of sense? Or are the organs of sense adapted 
only to contraction and repulsion ? There are several 
facts to be ascertained, before it can be asserted on good 
ground, that the senses are incapable of discerning the 
operations of immaterial substances ; or that these sub- 
stances have, and can have, no share in producing the 
phenomena of nature. There can be but one simple mate- 
rial substance, or one simple basis of contraction and re- 
pulsion; and it would be absurd in the extreme to sup- 
pose, that this one simple principle can be the basis of 
all the endless variety of phenomena which meet the 
senses; or that it can produce at the same time contrac- 
tion, expansion, bitter, sweet, red, blue and yellow. 

There are a variety of minute operations produced on 
the organs of sight and of taste, which have not been 



60 THE ALPHABET 

ascertained to consist of contraction and repulsion ; we 
know that the senses take cognizance of other modes of 
operation exhibited on a broad scale, such as the ascen- 
sion of vapour, the expansion of bodies by heat, the 
harmony of sound; and when these operations are mi- 
nute, and are produced in contact with the organs of 
sense, may they not produce that variety of sensation 
which we experience ? It is unphilosophical, and con- 
trary to common sense, to suppose that all our different 
sensations have only one exciting cause ; which must be 
the case, if the senses perceive only the phenomena of 
matter. 

There is a two-fold classification of phenomena, 
which arises out of the nature of things, but which ren- 
ders this subject much more complex and entangled ap- 
parently, than it is really. The classification we allude 
to, is not a scientific, or artificial one ; it is to be collect- 
ed from the common language of mankind ; it is founded 
in common sense, and common observation, and in the 
obvious differences and analogies, of the phenomena of 
nature, and of the organs of sense. 

And first, the phenomena are classed according to the 
different organs affected. There are colors, or objects 
of sight; sounds, or objects of hearing; tastes and 
odours, or objects of taste and smell; and all the differ- 
ent degrees and modes of repulsion, as hardness, rough- 
ness, £fc. the objects of feeling. But each organ of 
sense perceives different phenomena, or different modes 
of operation. And it is a fact worthy of observation, 
that several of the organs of sense, perhaps all of them, 
excepting that of feeling, distinguish three simple modeg 
of operation, or experience three distinct kinds of sen- 
sation. Of the objects belonging to the organ of vision, 
we have the three primary colour^, red, Hue and ml- 



OF THOUGHT. 61 

low0 corresponding, numerically, and essentially too, 
as will appear — to the simple elementary phenomena, 
motion, perception and harmony — and to the simple ef- 
ficient causes, Power, Spirit and Truth. The organ of 
hearing distinguishes three distinct operations; first, 
simple so und; secondly, harmony of sound, a phenome- 
non distinct from simple sound ; and thirdly, the pathos 
of sound, distinct from either of the former. Every 
sound that differs at all from simple sound, partakes of 
one, or both of the two latter modifications of sound.— 
The organ of taste also distinguishes three simple phe- 
nomena, the sweet, the pungent, and the astringent, or 
acid. 

But again, the common sense, and common language 
of mankind, recognize an analogy between the sensa- 
tions of the different organs, or rather between the phe- 
nomena addressed to the different organs; which pheno- 
mena are the objects and exciting causes of our sensa- 
tions. Thus Ave have sweet sounds, and sweet colours, 
as well as sweet tastes and sweet odours. Then we 
have lively and dull colours, lively and dull sounds, 
lively and dull, or insipid tastes, &c. This analogy, or 
similarity, which is so plainly recognized in the pheno 
mena, is obviously inferred from the analogy, or simL 
larity of the sensations excited in the different organs 
by the phenomena. It is obviously taken for granted, 
that the sensation excited in one organ by any mode of 
operation, is analogous to the sensation excited in any 
of the other organs, by the same mode of operation. 
The same simple mode of operation, that is harmony, is 
beauty to the eye, melody to the ear, and sweetness to 

* The remaining four of the colours sometime* numbered witlrth* 
elementary, are evidently compounds. 



62 THE ALPHABET 

the taste and smell. A harmonious vibration produced 
in the organ of sight, or in that of taste, similar, or cor- 
responding to the vibrations produced in the organ of 
hearing by musical sounds, will of course produce in 
those organs sensations, analogous to that excited by- 
music; for a sensation is nothing else than a percejHion 
of the vibration or change, produced within the organ 
of sense, by the operation of the external object upon 
that organ. 

The eye has the advantage of perceiving harmony in 
a variety of different situations and relations, from which 
circumstantial differences the same phenomenon takes 
different names. There is harmony or proportion of 
form or figure, otherwise called beauty; harmony of 
movements, called grace; and one of the primary co- 
lours will of course consist of a harmonious vibration 
produced upon, and within the organ of vision. 

"So the glad impulse of congenial powers, 
"Or of sweet ^ound, or fair proportion'd form, 
"The grace of motion, or the bloom of light, 
"Thrills through imagination's tender frame, 
"From nerve to nerve." 

Which of the primary colours it is that consists of a 
harmonious vibration, whether it is the red, the blue, or 
the yellow, it would be hazardous, perhaps, to decide ; 
but there is reason to conjecture that it is the red. This 
conjecture is founded, partly on fact, and partly on the 
analogy of our sensations. It will probably be granted, 
that the sensation excited in the organ of sight by the co- 
lour of yellow, is not analogous to that excited in the or. 
gan of hearing by harmony of sound. Our appeal in 
this case, is to the consciousness, and the discriminating 
taste of the reader. But there is external evidence in 
support of the conjecture, that blue is not the colour of 



OF THOUGHT. 63 

harmony. It is a known fact, that blue is the most re- 
frangible of the elementary colours; but refraction is a 
particular case of gravitation, it is the approach of the 
parts; and gravitation or contraction is a phenomenon 
distinct from harmony, aud excites a sensation peculiar 
to itself, which will he noticed just now. That the co- 
lours are all refrangible in some degree, is evidence that 
no one of them is quite pure, or unmixed, excepting the 
blue, or that they all contain a portion of the gravitating 
substance* 

Again, the same simple mode of operation, that is, 
contraction, is acidity, or astringency to the taste; sim- 
ple sound to the ear , and to the eye the colour blue. 
When the material substance in its pure elementary 
state, enters the organ of sight, as light in general enters 
and passes through any other chrystaline body, it pro- 
duces its own mode of operation, a contraction in the 
nerve. This contraction is, in the first place, the opera- 
tion of the substance which enters the organ; this opera- 
tion is the colour blue ; when it has entered the organ, 
it excites a like operation, a contraction in the organ it- 
self, or the nerve ; this is called the idea of the colour 
blue. The idea, is the colour itself, or it is contraction 
produced within the organ. Further, the feeling or per- 
ception of the idea, or the perception of the contraction 
within the organ, is that which is called the sensation 
of the colour blue. The organ does not perceive what 
is the mode of operation by which it is affected, but it 
perceives that a peculiar idea or change, is produced 
within it ; it perceives the differences of the colours, or 
of the ideas produced within it, but it does not perceive 
in what these differences consist. 

There is a third simple mode of operation which, with 
tWse before mentioned, complete the circle of the phe~ 



64 THE ALPHABET 

nomena, or of the objects of our sensations. If contrac- 
tion constitutes the colour of blue and harmony, the red, 
the only remaining simple mode of operation, that is, ex- 
pansion, will form the colour yellow. It will be shewn 
in the next chapter, that expansion is the modus operan- 
di of spiritual substance ; or that it is the manner in 
which spirit operates upon, and influences matter. It is 
probably this mode of operation or expansion, that ex- 
cites the idea and sensation of warmth or pungency in 
the organ of taste, and the same which produces or con- 
stitutes, the pathos of sound. Pathetic, or penetrating 
sounds, issue from a relaxation of the muscles produc- 
ing sound, or producing the human voice, and operate 
by sympathy upon the hearer. This relaxation in the 
voice, arises from internal distress, or is imitated where 
there is no real distress, either by the human voice, or 
by a musical instrument. 

Thus expansion, the modus operandi of Spirit, is 
pathos to the ear, pungency to the taste, and to the eye 
the colour yellow; while harmony, the modus operandi 
of Truth, is music to the ear, sweetness to the taste, and 
beauty, or the colour red to the eye ; and contraction, 
the modus operandi of Power, is astringency to the taste, 
simple sound to the ear, and sublimity, or the colour 
blue to the eye. The phenomena of Power constitute 
the sublime ; those of Truth, the beautiful ; and those 
of Spirit, the pathetic. 

This is an outline of a theory which cannot be fully 
developed, except in a detailed investigation of the nature 
of the human mind. It is merely intended as an illus- 
tration of the position, thai there is a natural and ne- 
cessary relation between our sensations and perceptions, 
and the antecedent impressions produced on our organs 
of sense by external objects 5 and that the qualities of 



OF THOUGHT. 65 

bodies, or the phenomena, which are the immediate ob- 
jects of our sensations, are logical evidences of the ex- 
istence, and of the various natures of the substances 
with which they are connected. 

The most formidable obstacle in the way of conceiv- 
ing and establishing the true definition of niatter, or of 
power, viz. Power is the substance and efficient cause 
of the phenomena of matter, is the prejudice that lin- 
gers in the mind respecting the nature of Mind. It is 
an undeniable fact, that Mind exerts an active power, 
that it originates motion, or gives the first impulse to 
muscular action. Hence it is inferred, that power is an 
attribute or quality of mind. Yet it is not from this 
simple fact — Mind originates motion, taken by itself, 
that the inference is deduced; for a much plainer and 
more natural conclusion would be, that Power is com- 
bined with spirit in constituting the substance of the 
mind. But it is tacitly assumed, that Mind is a sim- 
ple substance; and it is on this principle, taken in con- 
junction with the fact just mentioned^ that it is so bold- 
ly asserted, that Power is an attribute of mind. If 
mind were a simple substance, it would seem that either 
the power to impel, or the power to perceive, must be a 
quality, or that both might be qualities; for if they are 
both substances, and both belong to mind, then mind is 
a compound. But admitting mind to be a simple es- 
sence, and considering that the phenomena of spirit are 
they which distinguish mind from matter, it follows that 
the simple spirit is that essence, or constitutes the sub- 
stance of the mind ; and that power is an attribute or 
quality of spirit. 

That mind originates motion, is a known fact. Mo~ 
Hon then is an attribute of mind, or it is an operation of 
mind. But power certainly is not an operation. Power 
9 



66 THE ALPHABET 

is not the operation of a cause, but the efficient cause of 
an operation. Motion is the operation of power, not of 
spirit. Mind must possess power, that is, mechanical 
power, or the power to impel, otherwise it could not 
originate motion; the spirit or power to perceive, is not 
the power to impel. The energy of the mind is in 
proportion to its mechanical power, and not to its in- 
tellectual, as distinguished from its mechanical power ; 
it is in proportion to the tension of the nerve, not to the 
intensity of feeling, nor to the acuteness of perception. 
Strength of mind does not consist in sensativeness ; it 
consists even less in the clearness and quickness of 
perception, than in the power to repel thoughts that are 
painful, or troublesome, and to confine the attention to 
a subject which requires labor. The labor of the mind 
is a mechanical operation, as really as the labor of 
the body ; the first consists of a continued effort to pro- 
duce those trains of ideas, or successive configurations 
in the brain, which are the signs, or evidences of the 
things which the mind is investigating. The only lo- 
gical inference that can be deduced from the fact, that 
Mind exerts an active power, is, that Power is a consti- 
tuent element of the substance of the mind. 

We have the same kind of evidence for the existence 
of power, in the mind, that we have for the existence 
of spirit in the mind ; each exhibits its peculiar pheno- 
menon; Spirit perceives, and Power impels. From 
the phenomenon, we infer the existence of the sub- 
stance; and from the species, or kind of phenomenon, 
we infer the species, or kind of substance ; that is, 
from perception, we infer the existence of spirit; and 
from motion, power. Power and spirit, or matter and 
spirit, are in the same predicament as to their generic 
characters; they are both substances, or they are both 



OF THOUGHT. 67 

invisible efficient causes, of visible, or perceived opera- 
tions. 

Mind contains a principle of action, or of impulse, 
as well as a principle of perception; but it is just as 
rational to suppose, that the principle of action, me- 
chanical power, is the agent, or efficient cause, of per- 
ception, as that the principle of perception, or the power 
to perceive, is the agent, or efficient cause, of impulsion. 
It is just as reasonable to suppose that the material 
substance, or that power, perceives, as that the spiritual 
substance impels. Whenever motion, or impulse, is 
exhibited to the senses, the thing which impels is, 
without hesitation, called body, or matter; but when 
the operation is hidden from the senses, and we are 
left to infer it from the more remote effects, that is, 
where the impulse perceived by the senses has been 
communicated, or produced by a previous impulse — for 
instance, where the action of the muscles is produced 
by an impulse originating in the mind, in this case, the 
primary cause, or thing which moves, is called power. 
When the senses perceive the primary, or immediate 
operation of power, as in gravitation and repulsion, we 
pronounce the operator to be matter; but when the 
senses perceive only the secondary effect, we pronounce 
the originating cause to be power. If we could see 
with our eyes, or feel with our hands the operation of 
mind in originating muscular motion, we should have 
no hesitation in determining that mind is in part mate- 
rial. But we can only infer the operation of the mind 
in this transaction from what follows, from the action 
of the muscles ; and this is in fact the only evidence 
we have, that there is an action, or impelling operation, 
in the mind as distinguished from the rest of the sys- 
tem; for we are not conscious of an exertion of power 



68 THE ALPHABET 

any where except in the muscles. And if from the 
action of the muscles we infer that an impulse is given 
by the mind, it is in plain terms applying the laws of 
matter and motion, to explain the phenomena of the 
mind, and the muscular system. It is an axiom of the 
Newtonian philosophy, that the momentum communi- 
cated, is in direct proportion to the momentum of that 
by, or from, which it is communicated; or, that "The 
"velocity, multiplied into the quantity of matter, of the 
"body impelled; is in proportion to the velocity mul- 
tiplied into the quantity of matter of the body which 
"impels.' 5 

It is common to contrast the mind, with solid body, 
the ethereal spirit, with the clod of the valley; and 
doubtless there is an essential difference between mat- 
ter and spirit ; and there is a contrast between the 
clod under our feet, and the air which surrounds us. 
Yet the air contains material substance, and so does the 
mind, which is not serial ; and matter is not necessarily 
a clod ; it exists in the atmosphere in a gaseous state ; 
for the lightest gas that gravitates, — and they all gravi- 
tate — is in part material, or contains the gravitating 
principle. That which the apostle Paul calls a spiritual 
body, is probably an serial substance, composed of power 
and spirit, or matter and spirit. It must be in part ma- 
terial, or it would not be body, and it differs from the 
natural body, probably by having a greater proportion 
of the spiritual principle, and in being far less dense. 

Material substance, in its primitive state, is not a 
clod. When the earth was without form, that is, "in 
"the beginning," when creation was about to commence; 
it is probable that the bodies which now exist in a sen- 
sible form, were, either in an serial state, like our atmos- 
phere, w*here several elementary substances enter into 



OF THOUGHT. 69 

the formation of a gas, or perhaps it was without any 
chemical attraction, when it would form a more com- 
plete chaos; the elements mingling, or existing together 
in space, without at all affecting, or being affected, by 
each other. The lightest gas has some degree of gra- 
vity, and gravity is the distinguishing characteristic of 
matter; the lightest gas then is, in part, material, and 
in some part the same, essentially, with the heaviest 
bodies in the internal parts of the earth. Every elastic 
fluid, or every gas, contains necessarily a contracting, 
and an expanding principle ; the opposing tendencies of 
these two principles constitute elasticity. Were it not 
for the operation of the contracting principle, the sub- 
stance of the gas would be dissipated ; and but for the 
operation of the expanding principle, the contracting 
substance would form itself into a solid mass. There 
can be little doubt but that our atmosphere contains the 
elements of all the substances which compose our earth 
and its inhabitants ; and it is highly probable that the 
earth is continually growing, or acquiring new acces- 
sions from the atmosphere, and that it has been alto- 
gether formed in this way, or from the atmosphere — 
under the controul and direction of infinite Wisdom and 
Power. But the atmosphere is in no danger of being 
exhausted, for, in any rational hypothesis, it must be 
supposed interminable; the air must extend through in- 
finite space, for it would be absurd to suppose, that an 
elastic fluid should be terminated by a vacuum. 

Before the formation of the heavens and the earth, 
the substances which compose all things were probably 
distributed, by their own equal attractions and expan- 
sions, throughout infinite space; and it would of course, 
require all the power in the universe, or if this phrase is 
improper, of infinite power, to break the equilibrium; 



70 THE ALPHABET 

and to compress a small part of the universal matter 
into a solid, or sensible form. — What the origin is, of 
that plastic energy, called chemical attraction ; whether 
it is the result of the combined tendencies of the several 
simple substances, or efficient causes, and is inherent in 
these causes, or is entirely dependent on the will of 
Him who presides over all these operations, it would 
require deep and undivided attention and research, to 
discover, and perhaps would not reward the toil by dis- 
closing itself to the enquirer. 

As knowledge and science are desirable, only as they 
are useful and applicable to the affairs of life, we will 
hazard an attempt to identify the efficient cause of gra- 
vitation, as it appears to the metaphysician, with the 
corresponding, or the same principle or substance, as it 
appears to the naturalist and the chemist. This attempt 
will, perhaps, be scouted, as was Galileo's theory of 
the earth ; but we firmly believe in the correctness of 
our theory ; yet if we should hereafter be convicted of 
error, it will not require a holy inquisition to make us 
recant. 

The simple substance which, in chemistry, is called 
Jiydrogene, is probably the same with the contracting 
principle, or material substance. This conjecture is 
founded, principally, on two known facts. First, Hy- 
drogene forms the solid parts of woody, or vegetable 
substances ; but solidity, or repulsion, belongs to mat- 
ter only, and material substance is the same one prin- 
ciple in all bodies ; therefore hydrogene is the basis of 
all solid, or material substances. Secondly. The 
forcible condensation, or contraction of hydrogene gas f 
whenever the equilibrium of the chemical attractions of 
its constituents is disturbed, as in the formation of wa- 
ter, is the other fact on which we ground the hypothesis, 



OF THOUGHT. n 

that hjdrogene is the contracting principle, or material 
substance. There are other facts known in chemistry 
which will tend to throw light on this subject; it rest* 
with chemists to refute, or confirm the hypothesis. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE. 

The existence of a spiritual substance is a principle 
Which is almost universally recognized. It has indeed 
been denied by a few speculative philosophers, some of 
whom have declared their conviction, that we have no 
knowledge of any thing beyond our own ideas. But 
this doctrine has always been predicated on the princi- 
ple, that All things are made of nothing. The exist- 
ence of matter has been denied on the same principle. 
Some have admitted the existence of matter, while they 
denied that of spirit; for, say they, if all things are 
made of nothing, it follows, that neither matter not 
spirit are the efficient causes of the phenomena ; that, 
consequently, the phenomena have no necessary con- 
nection with the substances ; and that it is then obvious, 
that for aught we know matter may both gravitate and 
perceive; all the phenomena in nature may belong to 
one and the same substance, and that substance may be 
matter. If all things are made of nothing, matter is 
not the real agent in gravitation, any more than in 



72 THE ALPHABET 

thought and perception; and there is no principle on 
which it can be either affirmed or denied, that spirit i§ 
essentially different from matter. 

The annals of philosophy do not record any regular 
attempt to investigate the evidence of the existence of 
spiritual substance; or to analyse the procedure of the 
mind in the discovery of this substance. Hence we 
have no regular science, or no principles established in 
a regular way, respecting the existence and nature of 
spiritual beings. — No doubt it would be deemed absurd, 
if we should talk of investigating the nature of spirit, by 
experiment and observation; yet all the knowledge w T e 
possess of spiritual substance is derived from experi- 
ence. But as this method has not been adopted regu- 
larly, in the philosophy of spirit, it has not been pursu- 
ed with advautage. That spirit exists, is taken for 
granted, but it is contended, very unphilosophically, 
that we neither know, nor can discover what is the es- 
sence of the mind or of spirit. We hope to make it 
appear, that the essence of the mind is known in fact, 
not to philosophers only, but that it is recognized by the 
common sense of mankind. 

In the philosophy of mind it has been customary to 
assume, as a first principle and an undeniable fact, that 
the mind is a simple essence; or, that the simple spiri- 
tual substance constitutes the whole of the mind, and i» 
the efficient agent, not in perception only, but also in 
motion; that it originates the actions of the muscles, 
and performs all the complex operations of the mind. 
It is believed that the essence of the mind is some mys- 
terious unknown thing — something beside the power to 
perceive and the power to move or impel; it is believed 
that these poivers are, not the ultimate efficient causes of 
the phenomena, perception and impulse, but that they 



^ 



of thought; n 

are qualities or attributes belonging to something else, 
which is called the essence of the miud, the knowledge 
of which, it is said, is beyond the reach of the hunan 
intellect. It is not pretended that there is auy log c al 
evidence of the existence of a substratum of these pvite 
ers; it is not alledged that a simple essence* to which 
they necessarily belong as qualities, is actually perceiv- 
ed; the power to impel, and the power to perceive are 
not operations, from which we would be bound in rea- 
son to infer the existence of an agent or cause. Yet it 
is on the ground that these powers^ the power to per- 
ceive and the power to move, are attributes, or qualities, 
that they are supposed to belong necessarily to a sub- 
stratum, or to something which is called the essence of 
mind. Now the essence of any thing, is that which 
makes that thing to be what it is. But what is it that 
makes the mind to be what it is, or to be mind ? It is 
the power to perceive, and the power to impel that makes 
mind to be mind. Therefore, the power to perceive, 
and the power to impel, constitute the essence of the 
mind. It is also received as an incontrovertable princi- 
ple, that Mind, or Spirit is unextended and indivisible. 
It is not intended to enter into an inquiry here, re- 
specting the nature of the human mind. Mind, or that 
being which both thinks and acts, — which both per- 
ceives and impels, is a compound substance, consisting 
of power and spirit, or matter and spirit. The simple 
spiritual substance perceives ; its operation is uniformly 
perception ; therefore it does not impel. Like causes 
produce like effects. Besides, it has already been prov- 
ed, that the power to impel is not a quality, but a sub- 
stance, and as power, as well as spirit, is essential to 
the constitution of mind, it follows that mind is a com 
pound substance. 
10 



M THE ALPHABET 

The nature of the spiritual substance is the subject 
of the present inquiry, and it is proposed to establish 
the position, that Spirit, in its elementary state, is a 
self-existent independent being, and the efficient cause 
of perception ; that previous to its entering into the 
constitution of the mind, it exists in an elementary 
state; and that it extends throughout all space, and 
pervades all bodies, animate and inanimate. 

The simple fact, that Spirit perceives, is a funda- 
mental principle in the philosophy of Spirit, or of Mind, 
as distinguished from matter ; it is a general fact pre- 
cisely analogous to that of the gravitation of matter. 
These simple ultimate facts present themselves to every 
mind capable of observation and reflection; and it is 
perhaps on account of its being so familiar to the mind, 
and on account of its simplicity, that the former princi- 
ple — spirit perceives — is almost overlooked in the phi- 
losophy of mind. To deny either of these simple ge- 
neral facts, would be to confound truth and falsehood, 
and to undermine every principle of philosophy. Yet 
it is, in effect, to deny these principles, to affirm, that 
Spirit impels, or originates motion, or is the efficient 
cause of gravitation. Like causes produce like effects. 
But this principle is inapplicable to a substance that is 
made of nothing; and that is not the real cause of any 
effect. If spirit is made of nothing, it does not really 
perceive; it is incapable of any operation in its own 
capacity ; and on any principle, it is just as rational to 
suppose that matter perceives, as that spirit impels, or 
originates motion. 

When natural reason lifts her voice, she finds a ready 
accordance in every unprejudiced mind. It will be readily 
granted, that spirit perceives, and that it is the only 
species, or kind of being, capable of perceiving: in a 



OF THOUGHT. ;3 

word, that whatever perceives is spirit; and that what 
does not perceive, is not spirit. Whenever we observe 
a specific phenomenon, we infer the existence of a spe- 
cific efficient cause, or substance ; whenever we observe 
perception, or feeling, we infer the existence and pre- 
sence of spirit ; and this amounts to, or includes all that 
we know of spirit ; every genuine principle of the phi- 
losophy of spirit, is implied in this one, that spirit per- 
ceives. If spirit is that which perceives, and is the only 
thing which perceives, it is the efficient cause of percep- 
tion ; it is that, and that only which is able to perceive. 
But like causes produce like effects; therefore, spirit 
does not impel, or produce any phenomenon different 
from perception. 

The power to perceive, is the essence of Spirit. 
There is not the least ground to suppose the existence 
of any other essence of spirit, or of a being to which the 
power to perceive is an attribute. The foicer to per- 
ceive is not a quality, requiring a subject, or substratum; 
it is not an operation, from which reason is bound to in- 
fer the existence of an agent. Perception is an attri- 
bute of spirit; the power to perceive is spirit itself; or it 
is that which perceives ; there is no power to perceive, 
excepting the efficient cause of perception, or that which 
actually perceives. 

If Spirit is the efficient cause of perception, it must 
be a self- existent independent being, in its elementary, 
or primitive state, for that which depends on some other 
being for its existence, can have no efficiency of its own ; 
it cannot of itself produce any operation;* it is not an 
efficient cause. Yet every individual spirit, although 
in itself an efficient cause of perception, is indebted, for 
its individuality, and for its situation relatively to sur- 
rounding objects, to the Creator, who separates it from 



70 THE ALPHABET 

the common element, and unites it to an organized body, 
through which it acquires all its knowledge, and all its 
enjoyments. 

In opposition to this it will he alledged, that the Su- 
preme Being has power to create, and actually does 
create, from nothing, all the spirits, or souls of men. 
But beside that this is bare assertion without the sha- 
dow of proof, it is absurd, for the reasons already men- 
tioned, to suppose the possibility of an efficient cause 
being created from nothing. This will be met with the 
argument, that infinite power can do all things ; that 
there is nothing too hard for infinite power. It is true, 
that in the proper sense of the terms, there is nothing 
too hard, or difficult for infinite power; yet it will not 
be denied that there are some things impossible even to 
infinite power. Infinite power cannot make two, equal 
to four, or a non-entity, equal to an efficient cause, 
There is indeed one sense of the words, in which it is 
true, that substances are made of nothing. When we 
look around in space, w r e say, that we see nothing, that 
the space is empty ; yet this may be occupied by air, or 
by light ; substances which enter into the composition of 
bodies, but which, in their elementary state were consi- 
dered to be nothing. The world and all that it contains 
was once in that state ; ^the earth was without form, 
"and void," yet it was ; substances existed, but without 
a sensible form ; their operations could not have been 
perceived by organs of sense such as ours. 

When it is asserted that infinite power creates sub- 
stances from nothing, it should in reason be shewn, 
either that it is within the compass of infinite power to 
do this thing, or that in fact it has been done. But 
neither of these can be shewn, on the contrary, the ab- 
surdity of the supposition is palpable. Can infinite 



OF THOUGHT, 77 

fwiver think, or perceive? We speak of mechanical 
power, or the power to impel. No, certainly: power 
does not, cannot perceive; it is spirit only that per- 
ceives, or that can perceive. If infinite power cannot 
produce the phenomenon, is it not absurd to suppose 
that it can create, from nothing, the efficient cause of the 
phenomenon ? The sole operation of power, is motion, 
or impulse, which never can amount to, or create, its 
own efficient cause. It would be equally absurd to 
suppose tbat Spirit can create other spirits from nothing. 
Spirit, then, is a self- existent, independent being, and is 
the efficient cause of perception. 

The spiritual substance exists in an elementary state ? 
previous to its entering into the constitution of the hu- 
man mind. The proof of this proposition will be. 
drawn from known facts, and from the attestation of 
sacred w r rit. 

It is a well known fact, that the substance of the 
body is continually wasting, and continually renewed 
by the food we take. But who shall dare to conjecture? 
in the face of the prevailing theories respecting mind; 
or spirit, that this too is constantly expending itself, and 
constantly repaired by the element from which it first 
originated. Yet there is hardly room for conjecture, it 
is a fact, which is obvious to the attentive observer, that 
the principle of life is thus wasted, and supplied; 
though the element from which it is supplied, is dif- 
ferent from that which replenishes the bodily substance, 
and is received through a different organ. 

The vital air which we inhale by the lungs, is the 
food of the principle of life. Every exercise of animal 
power exhausts, or lessens the principle of life, or the 
sensorial power; and is followed by an increase of 
breathing, to obtain a fresh supply, and an accelerated 



78 THE ALPHABET 

circulation of the blood, to distribute that supply 
tbroughout the system. There is no fact more clear- 
ly ascertained, than that life results from the air we 
breathe, and death from the exclusion of air. So long 
as we breathe, we live ; but the most perfectly orga- 
nized body, is dead until it breathes. "God made man 
"of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos- 
trils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." 
But what is the principle of life ? That which is called 
life, consists of actions, or motions excited by stimulus ; 
and stimulus is something perceived, or felt. The 
principle of life then, is that substance which is capa- 
ble of being stimulated, or of feeling, or perceiving the 
action of stimulus. But that which perceives, or feels, 
is Spirit. Wherever there is perception, there is spirit; 
from the lowest or dullest feeling of sense, to the highest 
exercise of reason, the same species of phenomenon, 
requires the same species of efficient cause. And by 
whatever name we call that phenomenon, whether we 
term it feeling, sense, or perception, it is essentially the 
same; it is the distinguishing characteristic of spiritual 
substance ; and it is the prominent feature in all the 
complex phenomena of reason and of sense. It is then 
an obvious fact, that the air we breathe contains, and 
constantly supplies the aliment of that substance, which 
is the principle both of life, and of intelligence. 

That spirit exists in an elementary state, is attested 
by the word of the august Being, who, by His creative 
power united our bodies and spirits, and who is most 
intimately acquainted with the constitution of man. 
The sacred historian, by divine inspiration informs us, 
that "God made man of the dust of the ground, and 
"breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man 
became a living soul." In consequence of the breath 



OF THOUGHT. 79 

©f life, or the air, being breathed into his nostrils, lie 
became a living soul. The dust of the ground, and the 
breath of life, are the elements from which is formed the 
living man, or the living soul. 

We are told by the learned, that the word which is 
translated wind, and breath, is the same throughout the 
sacred scriptures, with that which is rendered spirit ; 
the same word in the original, signifies spirit, ivind, 
breath. This would seem plainly to imply, that the 
wind, or the air, is spirit, or that it contains the ele- 
mentary spiritual substance. There is no part of sacred 
writ that forbids this implication ; but the metaphysical 
theories of the learned forbid it. However it is gene- 
rally true, that the most learned are also the most libe- 
ral, and most ready to encourage research; and with 
these encouraging reflections we proceed to lay before 
the reader the following considerations. 

In the first chapter of Genesis it is said, "The earth 
"was without form, and void, and darkness was upon 
"the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon 
"the face of the waters." It appears to be assumed by 
divines, that the Holy Spirit is spoken of in this passage. 
But surely — with deference to these respected authori- 
ties, — it is attributing to that divine person, an office by 
no means appropriate, and far beneath the dignity of his 
character. It is not warranted by other parts of sacred 
writ, for wherever the Holy Spirit is expressly mention- 
ed, he is employed in revealing, either the character of 
God, the history of fallen man, or the mysteries of re- 
demption. The Holy Spirit is the proper subject of the 
moral attributes of God; or is the agent in producing 
holiness, and in inspiring the mind of man with the 
knowledge and love of truth ; but is nowhere represent- 
ed as the agent in physical operations, such as moving 



30 THE ALPHABET 

on the face of the waters. The wind, or Spirit of God 
spoken of in the passage under consideration, would ap- 
pear to a plain mind to be that elementary spirit, or 
breath, or vital air, which to this day moves upon the 
face of the waters, being the fluid element next in weight 
to water. It was that elementary substance, which 
doubtless then was, and which still is one of the consti- 
tuents of atmospheric air ; and which supplied the first 
progenitors of our race, and which still supplies their 
descendants with the principle of life, or the spiritual 
part of their constitutions. And it was called the Spirit 
of God, because it was that elementary substance which 
was yet retained absolutely in His hands, or which 
had not yet been appropriated to the formation of indi- 
vidual beings. 

v There are many passages of scripture in which the 
Spirit of the Lord is mentioned, where it is evidently 
not the Holy Spirit that is intended. Such are the fol 
lowing. "And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily 
"upon him," [Sampson] "and he rent him" [the lion] 
"as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in 
"his band."* — "And when he came to Lehi the Philis- 
tines shouted against him ; and the Spirit of the Lord 
"came mightily upon him ; and the cords that were on 
"his arm became as flax that was burnt with the fire, 

%nd his bands loosed from off his hands. "f No one 
can seriously believe, that the Spirit of the Lord, in 
these passages, means the Holy Spirit ; it appears 
plainly to be the principle of life, or the principle of ani- 
mal strength that is alluded to. The following passage 
has the same purport. "As the beast goeth down into 
"the valley, the Spirit of the Lord causeth him to rest."]; 

Mtttes J&t. IS, f xv. 14. i Isaiah Ixiii. 14. 



OF THOUGHT, 81 

These passages shew pretty plainly, that the words 
Spirit of the Lord, in the holy scriptures, do not al- 
ways allude to the Holy Spirit. — In the following ex- 
tracts, the words spirit, and Spirit of God, evidently 
mean the elementary principle of animal life. "All the 
"while the breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in 
"my nostrils, my tongue shall not utter deceit."* — "And 
"the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard 
"these tidings, and his anger was kindled greatly ."f 
"Cease ye from man, whose breath" [spirit] "is in his 
"nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of."f— It is 
impossible to inculcate in a plainer manner, the princi- 
ple, that the elementary principle, or spirit of life, is de- 
rived from the air we breathe. 

That the spiritual substance has extension, scarcely 
needs any farther proof than what the foregoing argu- 
ments afford ; yet as there is direct testimony from sa- 
cred writ, as well as the clearest evidence from fact to 
establish this point, it is proper to say a few words on 
the subject, especially as it will tend to confirm the posi- 
tion before insisted on, if it be thought to need any far- 
ther confirmation, — that spirit exists in an elementary 
state. 

And first, of the testimony from sacred writ. "The 
"eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the 
"evil and the good."|| This text, with many others, 
prove the omnipresence of the Spirit of God. But it is 
idle to go about to prove the omnipresence; ho one 
will deny it. And it is probable that no one will ven- 
ture to alledge, that omnipresence^ and extension, are 
two different modes of existence,— or, that the first does 
not imply the last. But if the Spirit of the Lord is 

♦ Job xxvii. 3. f I Samuel si, $. * Isakh il 22, fl Proverbs xv. 3, 
11 



tt THE ALPHABET 

omnipresent, or is extended throughout all space, then 
extension is not inconsistent with the nature of spirit ; 
if the Spirit of ike Lord is not distinguished from mat- 
ter by being unextended, is it necessary that the spirits 
of men should be distinguished from matter by the want 
of extension ? If the Spirit of the Lord is extended 
through infinite space, does not this afford strong pre- 
sumptive evidence, that all spirits have their degree of 
extension. 

But we have more direct evidence from fact, in sup- 
port of the principle that spirits are extended beings. 
Whatever facts we possess in relation tc this subject, 
and as they respect the human spirit, or mind, are of 
course derived from the testimony of consciousness. 
And may we not confidently appeal to the conscious- 
ness of the reader; do we not feel, or perceive with our 
eyes, our ears, palate, at the ends of our fingers, and 
with almost every part of the body ? Are we not con- 
scious of all this ? Does not the experience of every 
moment confirm it ? Make a farther experiment when 
you will ; put your finger in the blaze of the candle, 
and you will instantly perceive that something is going 
forward in the finger. Whatever swift little messenger 
conveyed the notice of this to the central reflecting or- 
gan, the brain, it must first have perceived it itself, 
at the point where the action originated. There is a 
perception, or sensation in the finger ; and the sensa- 
tive substance must have extended to the finger. It is 
to no purpose to say, that the sensation is in the mind ; 
and that the mind is confined to the brain, or to a single 
point in the brain; it might as well be said that the 
mind is in the moon ; if it is not present in the part 
where we are conscious, we know not where it is: 
consciousness is then no guide: its testimony is false. 



OF THOUGHT. $S 

But, to return: we are conscious that there is a sensa- 
tion in the finger, and this consciousness is the only 
evidence we have, on the subject of the locality of the 
seusative substance. It is a fact that the finger feels, 
or is conscious of the violent change produced within 
it, by the action of the fire ; no sophistry can disprove 
this fact. The sensation is without doubt in the mind ; 
this cannot be denied ; wherever there is sensation, 
there is mind ; but must we, in spite of fact, conclude 
from this, that the sensation is in the brain, and confin- 
ed to a single point there; or should we not rather 
conclude that the mind extends to the finger, and to 
every point where sensation is felt. There is no fact 
that forbids this conclusion ; it is not inconsistent with 
any principle established in reason. If, where there is 
sensation there is necessarily mind — and if it is a fact 
that there is sensation in the finger, then the mind ex. 
tends to the finger; the mind has nearly the same ex- 
tension with the body. 

But in defiance of the testimony of consciousness, it 
will, perhaps, be insisted on, that sentient beings are 
unextended; we shall be told that the pain produced 
by the heat of the candle, is not really in the finger, but 
in the mind which occupies a point somewhere in the 
brain. But this is borrowing the question; when it is 
proved that the mind is unextended, then we shall be 
compelled to admit that our sensations are confined to a 
point; but the only evidence calculated to prove that the 
mind is unextended, would be the fact, that our sensa- 
tions are confined to a point. Now this fact can be 
ascertained only by experiment and by the testimony of 
consciousness ; but consciousness does not testify the 
fact ; on the contrary, consciousness testifies that sensa- 
tion takes place in the external organs, — hence it is that 



84 THE ALPHABET 

they are called the organs of sense, or of sensation; — 
if we are to rely on the testimony of consciousness, a 
single sensation extends itself over a considerable sur- 
face, or throughout the whole extent of an organ. 
There is no evidence to be drawn from consciousness, 
that the pain which is apparently in the finger, is really 
in the head. 

We are not conscious that our sensations are alto- 
gether in the brain ; we are not conscious at all of sensa- 
tion in the brain, excepting when it is disordered. It 
is not to the brain that we refer our pains and our plea- 
sures ; they originate apparently in the bodily organs ; 
our joys and our sorrows we refer to our bosoms — love, 
hatred, anger, benevolence we attribute to the heart, by 
which is meant, not the muscular organ so called, but 
the spirit, residing in the bosom as well as in the head. 
The head is no doubt the principal seat of intelligence, 
it is there all the organs meet ; it is to this common re- 
ceptacle is brought all the notices of external objects ; 
it is there these notices, or impressions are analysed, 
and our inferences drawn as to the existence, nature, 
and positions of external objects, and our connexions 
with them. But it is in the bosom we experience the 
feelings, the sentiments, and the perturbations excited 
by those objects ; it is in the bosom, in conjunction with 
the brain, that we approve, or disapprove. We per- 
ceive right and wrong in the brain,- but we feel good and 
evil in the heart, that is, throughout the whole of the 
nervous system, including the brain. To sum up all in 
one word, wherever there is blood, and nerve, and vital 
air, there is sensation. 

There can be no doubt, but that the external organs 
of sense communicate with the brain, and with it form 
one grand organ of sensation, or perception, and that 



OF THOUGHT. 85 

the spirit, or mind, having her principal seat in the 
brain, has there the advantage of receiving and compar- 
ing all the impressions, or ideas conveyed through the 
several external organs, and of drawing her conclusions 
from the whole. It is thus we learn to estimate dis- 
tance, by comparing the ideas of the organ of sightj with 
those of the organ of feeling. 

But if the spiritual substance exists in an elementary 
state ; and if in the human system it is continually ex- 
pended, and supplied again by the air we breathe, does 
not this destroy the identity of the mind ? — By no 
means. The identity of the mind does not consist in 
its having retained the identical parts, or particles of 
spirit, any more than the identity of the body consists 
in its having retained the same particles of matter. — 
The sameness of the spiritual substance cannot consti- 
tute the identity of the mind,— first, because the spirit 
does not constitute the whole mind. Mind is a com- 
bination of power and spirit, or matter and spirit. The 
only operation and characteristic of spirit, is perception ; 
there is nothing in one spirit, simply as spirit, to distin- 
guish it from another spirit; every spirit perceives. 
Simple spirit is incapable of acquiring a fixed and per- 
manent form, or a distinct, or individual character.-— 
Secondly. If we consider the mind as formed of two 
distinct substances, power and spirit, still there is 
nothing simply in this combination of substance to dis- 
tinguish one mind from another; power and spirit is 
the same in one mind, with power and spirit in another 
mind. One mind is distinguished from another, not by 
perception, but by the objects of its perceptions, or about 
which it has been conversant, or by the ideas and the 
knowledge it has acquired, and by its habits of think- 
ing and feeling. The identity of the mind consists in 



*6 THE ALPHABET 

the identity of its ideas, associations, and habits of 
thinking and feeling. But knowledge, and ideas, and 
habits of thinking and feeling, can be acquired only 
through the medium of organs, adapted at once to re- 
ceive impressions from external objects, and to feel, or 
perceive these impressions ; that is, organs composed of 
matter and spirit; matter, to be acted on and to react, 
or to receive impression from matter ; and spirit, to 
perceive, or feel the impression. Such in fact are our 
organs of sensation. It is the material part of the nerv- 
ous system, or mind, which receives the impressions 
from external objects, or which is the subject of the 
ideas, or configurations or modes of operation communi- 
cated by these impressions; but it is the spiritual part, 
which is in combination with the material, that per- 
ceives these impressions. Every repetition of an idea 
in the mind, that is, every repetition of a particular ac- 
tion, or operation, in the external organs of sense and 
the brain, increases the facility, and the tendency to re- 
peat this same idea, or operation, and in all probability 
increases the bulk and consistence, or solidity of the or- 
gan, or organs, both external and internal thus brought 
into action ; — just as the repetition of a particular action 
in the muscular organs, increases the size of the muscle, 
and the facility of repeating that action. 

We come now to consider more particularly, the phy- 
sical and chemical characters of spiritual substance ; or 
to inquire in what form it exists in the physical, or ex- 
ternal world, and in what way it exhibits itself to the 
senses. It is a known fact, that the spirit, or mind in- 
fluences, and is influenced by bodily substances; yet, 
perhaps, the attempt to investigate this fact, or to in- 
quire into the manner in which this reciprocal influence 
Is effected, will be pronounced vain and idle. But 



OF THOUGHT, 8/ 

surely it is the office of philosophy to explore, and not 
to shut up a field of inquiry. Therefore, we hope to 
receive the indulgence hestowed on adventure, instead 
of the censure due to temerity. — The problem, as to the 
manner in which matter and spirit reciprocally affect 
each other, is to be solved only in one way, — that is, by 
identifying Spirit with some one of the substances fami- 
liarly known in what is called the physical world, and 
by shewing what is the modus operandi of this sub- 
stance, or the manner in which it affects, and is af- 
fected by matter. 

The manner in which it is common to identify one 
substance with another in philosophical investigation, is 
in reasoning from analogy, the analogy of the pheno- 
mena. It is on this species of evidence that any two 
substances are pronounced to be of the same kind, or 
species; the soul, or spirit of a man, and the soul or 
spirit of a beast, are called by the same name, or per- 
ceived to be the same species of substance, on the evi- 
dence of analogy, the analogy, or sameness of their 
phenomena; the lightning of the heavens, and the elec- 
tric aura, are pronounced the same, on the same kind of 
evidence; and aerial substances are known to be mate- 
rial, on the evidence of analogy, or because they gravi- 
tate and repel. We propose to shew, on the evidence 
of analogy, that the substance which in metaphysics is 
denominated Spirit, is the same with that which in 
chemistry is called the matter of heat, or caloric. 

It is apt to be imagined, that there is no metaphysi- 
cal reasoning at all attending the discovery and percep- 
tion of material substance; we seem to perceive it by 
the senses; it obtrudes itself so continually on observa- 
tion, that without reflection and a laborious abstraction, 
we imagine that we perceive, the substance immediately j 



88 THE ALPHABET 

while in reality it is ouly the phenomena that are peiv 
ceived immediately, or by the senses. At the same 
time, Spirit is conceived to he an invisible mysterious 
thing, and that even its operations are necessarily invi- 
sible and mysterious. It is admitted, indeed, that the 
phenomena of spirit are perceived by internal sense, or 
consciousness; but it is believed that they can in no 
wise affect the external organs of sense. But material 
substance, or the basis of gravitation and repulsion, is 
as completely invisible to the senses, as the spiritual 
substance; neither the one nor the other is perceived 
immediately, or in the way that we perceive operations. 
The perception or knowledge of matter, as well as the 
knowledge of spirit, is the result of a metaphysical in- 
vestigation of the phenomena. 

The modus operandi of spirit is perceived by the 
external organs of sense ; and we have ventured to term 
this, the physical characteristic of spirit. There is no 
good reason to aver, that the phenomena of spirit may 
not affect the organs of sense as well as the phenomena 
of matter ; or that they may not affect the external, as 
well as the internal sense, or consciousness. For what 
is internal sense ; or what is consciousness ? It is the 
perception, or feeling of the operations, or phenomena 
which take place within the mind. — And what is exter- 
nal sense, or sensation in the external organs? It is con- 
sciousness too ; or it is the perception, or feeling of the 
changes, or operations communicated to and produced 
within the external organs, by the impressions of exter- 
nal objects. It appears then, that sensation in the ex- 
ternal organs, and consciousness within the mind are 
precisely similar ; they differ only in their localities « 
consciousness in the mind, is the sensation, or percep- 
tion of what takes place within the mind; aud sensation 



OF THOUGHT. 89 

in the external organs, is the consciousness or percep- 
ception of what takes place within the external organs. 
Sense and consciousness perceive phenomena, or opera- 
tions, hut do not take cognizance of substances. If 
the internal organ of consciousness, or sensation per- 
ceives the phenomena of spirit, why may not the exter- 
nal organ of sensation, or consciousness perceive the 
phenomena of spirit ? Is spirit less efficient than mat- 
ter? Is it matter only that has the power to awaken 
the sentient organ ? Or has the sentient principle in the 
^he external organs the power to perceive the pheno- 
mena of matter; and not the power to perceive the phe- 
nomena of spirit? 

The organ of feeling perceives gravitation and re- 
pulsion; and reason infers an invisible cause, a some- 
thing which gravitates and repels ; and this something 
is called matter. The external organ of feeling per- 
ceives heat also ; that is, the phenomenon called heat ; 
and it is inferred, that there is a substance, or mat- 
ter of heat; we do not refer this phenomenon to the 
same cause, or substance which produces gravitation. 
Though the substance of heat is, improperly, termed 
matter of heat, it is notorious that it does not gravitate 
or repel. The substance of heat is immaterial. Heat 
is capable of being accumulated to an unknown extent, 
by means of its chemical attraction for material sub- 
stance; but this is quite different from gravitation, 
which is the necessary operation of matter, independ- 
ently of chemical affinities. Heat radiates, or expand^ 
but this is different from the repulsion of matter, for 
while heat radiates, it penetrates solid bodies, it does 
not repel them. By means of its chemical attraction^ 
heat imparts to bodies its own mode of operation, ex- 
pansion, and causes matter to exhibit phenomena essen- 
12 



i>0 THE ALPHABET 

tially different from contraction, or gravitation. It is in 
consequence of this tendency to expand, together with 
its chemical attraction for material substance, that heat 
produces solution and decomposition in unorganized 
bodies; and it is in consequence of the same tendencies, 
physical and chemical, that it gives to organized bodies 
k peculiarity of character called life. — It is a known 
fact, that the living principle is continually counteract- 
ing the contracting, or gravitating tendency of the ma- 
terial part of the animal system. Many of the animal 
functions are performed by means of expansion ; and it 
is this mode of operation that distinguishes the living 
from the dead body;— or the phenomena of life, from 
simple gravitation and repulsion. It is by expanding 
the chest that Ave breathe ; it is by alternate contractions 
and expansions of the heart and arteries, that the blood 
is circulated, &c. It has been shewn, that the mode of 
operation of the material substance, or of power, is con- 
traction; that in all animal actions, the primary opera- 
tion is contraction. But when a muscle has contracted^ 
the material part has not any power nor tendency again 
to expand ; consequently its actions would be at an end, 
if there were not another species of energy, or power, to 
expand the contracted muscle. The contractions of 
matter cannot be counteracted but by direct expansion. 
But what is it that is known to counteract and controul 
the contracting tendency of matter in the animal con- 
stitution ? It is the spirit, or the principle of life. 

Expansion then is the mode, or manner in which 
spirit operates upon, and controuls matter. — But expan- 
sion is the mode or manner in which heat, or fire ope- 
rates upon and controuls matter; therefore, heat and 
spirit, are the same substance. — It is probable that heat 
causes bodies to expand, not by force, which is the kind 



OF THOUGHT. 91 

ef energy exhibited by power, or matter, but by its own 
tendency to expand, united with its chemical attraction 
for material substance. The force exhibited by ex- 
panding bodies, is the energy of power; but the direc- 
tion of that force, that is, from a center, is the operation 
of spirit, and the material substance is carried along 
with the spiritual by chemical attraction. 

There are certain metaphors in the language of cul- 
tivated nations, which plainly indicate a common senti- 
ment, or apprehension among mankind, that external 
fire, and the internal spirit, are analogous, or that they 
are essentially the same. When the mind exhibits 
much excitement it is said to be heated, or fired. Thft 
mind is fired with a thirst of glory; fired with a thirst of 
revenge, &c. Then there is the j^re of genius; the fire 
of anger; the^re of ambition; the fire of devotion. — - 
Prometheus stole fire from heaven, to animate his man 
of clay. — "When I mused, the fire burned," said the 
royal poet. The following, from the same pen, is an 
expression without any metaphor of the sameness of 
spirit and fire. "Who maketh spirits his angels, — a 
"flame of fire his ministers." — Passion is said to be a 
combustion, in which the body is consumed by internal 
fires. Animal life is a slow combustion, in which the 
body is exhaled by the operations of the spirit, and if 
not constantly replenished, would cease to furnish fuel 
for the vital flame. 

But metaphor, it may be said, is not a proper vehicle 
of philosophical truth. Yet metaphor is founded in 
analogy, and analogy certainly is one species of philo- 
phical evidence. Analogy consists in the sameness of 
the mode of operation, or of some circumstance attend- 
ing some two things. There is a loose analogy, where 
the circumstances which correspond in the two things 



92 THE ALPHABET 

which are analogous, are remotely connected with those 
things, or are the remote effects, and not the immediate 
necessary operations of those things. The following 
metaphor presents an instance of this loose analogy. 
"If any man seem to he religious, and bridleth not his 
tongue," &c. This metaphor is founded in the analogy 
between a bridle and a moral precept, or truth. The 
point of analogy is the restraint imposed by the bridle, 
and by the precept; but the effect is remote from either 
cause; and the mode of operation of the one cause is 
different from that of the other. A bridle restrains by 
force, and by the pain it inflicts ; but a moral precept, 
or truth restrains by its beauty, and by the pleasing sen- 
sation it excites in the mind. — It would be improper to 
rest the proof of a principle in philosophy on this vague 
analogy. But there is a strict and philosophical ana- 
logy, which consists in the sameness of the immediate 
effects, or of the modes of operation of the analogous 
causes, and which indicates the sameness of the causes 
themselves. This strict analogy subsists between spi- 
ritual substance, and the substance of heat; the mode of 
operation of the one, and of the other, is the same; it is 
expansion ; and this is the point of analogy between 
them. 

Spirit, or the substance of heat, pervades all bodies 
animate, and inanimate. "Whither shall I go from thy 
"Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence." 
The Spirit of God is every where, it extends through- 
out all space, through that which is occupied by body, 
as well as that which is not. So it is w 7 ith the substance 
of heat. From its inherent tendency to expand, it dis- 
seminates itself universally ; it cannot be excluded from 
any part of space, nor totally abstracted from body. 
But the phenomena of spiritual substance, that is, 



OF THOUGHT. 93 

perception and sensation, as they appear to our internal 
consciousness, and as they exhibit themselves through 
the external signs of feeling, and of enlargement of 
mind, are much more obvious, or discoverable in the 
animal and rational worlds, than in the vegetable and 
mineral. Hence the common opinions taken up with- 
out investigation, that the spiritual substance belongs 
exclusively to those higher parts of creation. But if 
spirit operate by expansion, if it expand in perceiving, 
and if it is by this mode of operation that it influences 
and controuls matter, then wherever we observe this 
phenomenon, expansion, we are bound in reason to in- 
fer the presence and agency of spirit. 

But when we seek the phenomena of spirit in other 
beings beside ourselves, we look not for expansion; for 
we are not conscious of this mode of operation in per- 
ceiving ; and if we were, we could not see the expan- 
sion of other minds, which are invisible; in all orga- 
nized bodies, the sensative part of the system is furnish- 
ed with a covering, at all points sufficient to conceal and 
protect the immediate subject of sensation, though not 
to exclude all impressions from without. But where 
we expect to discover the sensative substance, we look 
for its secondary effects in the actions of the beings or 
things wherein we expect it to reside ; we look for the 
external signs, of perception, or feeling, and of choice 
or volition, in the actions of other beings, and when we 
perceive a train of actions which manifestly tend to a 
desirable end, and which are too complex to be the effect 
of accident, we always infer, that they spring from de- 
sign, or volition, and that the spiritual substance is pre- 
sent. That is, where these external signs are exhibited 
by animal beings, we fail not to recognize the spiritual 
substance through them. And if we can trace the 



94 THE ALPHABET 

«ame external signs in the vegetable and mineral king- 
dams, will it not be a fair induction to refer tbem to the 
same invisible causes, or to infer that they originate in 
sensation and volition, the operations of spiritual sub- 
stance. It is not necessary that spirit exhibit the high- 
est attribute of mind, in order to manifest its existence. 
Reasoning implies, not only perception, the simple ope- 
ration of spirit, it implies also the presence of ideas, or 
of a subject on which reason is exercised, and ideas re- 
quire bodily organs; reasoning also implies some know- 
ledge of truth, or of the necessary relations of things. 

Let us then endeavour to trace those external signs of 
sensation and volition, in the gradation from a man, to 
a mineral, and see whether there is a point at which 
these signs entirely disappear, and at which spirit ceases 
to exhibit her influence. In man these signs of percep- 
tion and volition shine forth with superior lustre, for 
they are blended with the signs of reason, and of high 
resolve. — Take away reason from man, or take away 
that internal organ of thought and perception, in which 
all the external organs meet, and which, being enlarged 
and extended as the mind acquires new ideas, has the 
power to reflect, or repeat the ideas at pleasure, and, by 
comparing and analysing, to discover the relations of 
things, — take away this organ, and there remains a 
mere animal, a sensitive system, but without the appa- 
ratus for reasoning. The simple spirit, or power to 
perceive, is the same in this as in the former, the same 
in the mete animal that it is in the rational being; but 
the organ of comparison, the store house of assorted 
ideas is gone. Still the organs of sense remain, and 
the principle of sensation and volition. — Take away 
then the external organs of seeing, hearing, tasting and 
smelling, and take away the muscles of locomotion, and 



OF THOUGHT. 95 

we shall no longer have an animal, but we shall have a 
vegetable ; the system that remains may still vegetate* 
Does the perceiving substance, or principle of sensation 
and volition depend on the animal organization? and is 
it gone with the organs of sense — so called? No, there 
is an organic system of vegetable life, resembling that 
of animal life. The vegetable has its secretory organs, 
it has its circulatory, respiratory and nutritive systems, 
as well as the animal. Secretion implies selection, or 
choice, or volition; and this implies perception. The 
spirit, or perceiving substance still attends us; the vege- 
table exhibits the external signs of internal feeling and 
selection, or choice; circulation, respiration and nutri- 
tion, cannot be accoi nted for from the laws of matter; 
they cannot be resoived into contraction and repulsion- 
Now destroy the c ganic system of vegetable life, and 
the vegetable dies ; .here remains no organized part to 
supply the want created by the continual exhalation 
from all bodies th it vegetate. After death the exhala- 
tion, or decompos stion goes on, for a short time, just as 
it had done before; presently it becomes more rapid, 
and at last the eatth returns to the earth as it urns, and 
the spirit, or pri nciple of vegetable life, ascends to its 
native element in air; for it is notorious, that after the 
abstraction of r ason, of animal organization, and of 
vegetable organization, that which remains is not all 
matter; it does** not all gravitate and return to dust; 
a part ascends by its own elevating, or expanding 
power, — carrying ( with it a portion of the gravitating 
substance. The expanding principle must, therefore, 
be an immaterial efficiency, existing independently of 
any organization. This principle appears to be inca- 
pable, at least in he present state of the chemical affini- 
ties; of disengagir/g itself altogether from matter; a fact 



90 THE ALPHABET 

which seeins to be signified in ancient mythology, by 
Vulcan having fastened an anvil to the feet of Juno, 
to prevent her escape from the earth, or from the at- 
mosphere. 

But to return, wherever the external signs of sensa- 
tion and volition are observed, there reason perceives 
spirit. It is not necessary that spirit should reason, 
to give evidence of its existence ; the faculty of reason- 
ing is not necessary to constitute a voluntary agent, for 
the lower animals act voluntarily, though they do not 
reason. It will be granted that spirit, or the perceiv- 
ing substance is the principle of knifrial life; that this 
principle may be traced from mm\ to the elephant, and 
from the elephant to the oyster. (There, are but a 
steps from the oyster to the vev.siiihe flan*,., and at each 
step the external signs of sensatioilj and t tend 

us. Yet though the externa] ?ip- bs :^ P : obvious, we 
shall not be aMew&i 
them here, as when 
will be denied tha 
the signs of sgn^fti 
firm, or deny, i&%tk fcaJste? thtfi Bid 

shall the objector uh,,t}.,;-. - ; -e j&&t''bite inrn Jnetions itffe 
voluntary? Mis fellmg l- e Se is :■>■;>•. pr-pof, fcrtit my own 
observations co&$$ofce im: ; 7 s-?,e h£z>|t ^afee food 
drink, avoid danger ami $rxk good, $*> ^lu^s this plant; 
it secretes* of selects fe'juices j)roper}for its sourish- 
ment ; and it shrinks from danger; ifhe inferiority of 
its powers to obi:ik fefaese end^ Is oofi prool^f the ab- 
sence of volitiou, op of ssrxsaiiokj tiiat inferiority con- 
sists, not in the want of feeling and desire, but in the 
want of more perfect bodily organs ;< if the phenomena 
are of the same kind,, though not t$ie same in degree 

X 



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J T < 


iW 


[h. 3 


■^ce 




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xM3 






ft ;- 


tcti 








sally 










d . i 


d ai- 



OF THOUGHT. 9r 

with those of animal life, they require tlie same kind 
of efficient cause. 

Perhaps in the strict sense of the w< rd volition, the 
actions of the plant, or indeed of the lower animals, 
cannot be said to be voluntary. If volition be consi- 
dered as implying design and forethought, or an ex- 
pectancy of what is to be the effect of the action, or 
if it imply a conception of the manner of the action it- 
self, it would be absurd to attribute all this to the plant. 
Nor is it necessary to insist that the plant acts volunta- 
rily in this sense of the word; if it exhibit signs of sen- 
sation, this is sufficient for our purpose; sensation be- 
longs to the spirit only. But, it may be said, though the 
plant is apparently, it is not really sensitive. But how 
can this be determined, unless we admit the phenomena 
as evidence of the fact ? We cannot "reason but from 
"what we know." The plant exhibits the external 
signs of sensation ; on what established principle is the 
reality of the fact denied? And after all, how far is the 
oyster elevated in dignity above the sensitive plant, that 
we must allow the former to have a spirit, while we 
deny it to the latter? It will not be denied that the oys- 
ter is sensitive really; then why not the plant? — In 
truth there is the same kind of evidence to prove the 
sensitiveness of the plant, that there is to prove the sen- 
sitiveness of animals. 

There are certain actions, or operations in the animal 
economy which are called involuntary, and which are 
so with respect to the mind, or to the organs of sense 
and of reason; but if actions may be termed voluntary 
on account of their being prompted by sensation, then 
every action which is not resolvable into gravitation and 
repulsion, is voluntary. If the oyster acts voluntarily, 
sn do the organs of animal life. The circulatory, 
13 



98 THE ALPHABET 

respiratory, and nutritive systems have their nerves, 
and their sensations, or they are capable of being sti- 
mulated, as well as the external organs of sense 
through which we acquire the knowledge of external 
objects ; and their peculiar actions arise as really from 
the influence of the spiritual, or sensitive substance, as 
do the actions which result from hearing, smelling and 
tasting, or even from reason. Those organs of animal 
life do not, indeed, communicate their sensations in a 
very sensible manner to the mind ; nor do their actions 
originate thence; each system has its own distinct sen- 
sations and actions ; hence these actions are involuntary 
relatively to the mind; but they are not so absolutely. 
Simple perception, or sensation is absolutely involun- 
tary, and so are gravitation and repulsion ; but every 
action, or motion that is not resolvable into gravitation 
or repulsion, is the result of perception. 

It is obvious that the sensitive plant perceives, or 
feels the contact of other bodies; its actions exhibit the 
signs, or evidences of sensation; and why should the 
plant be deemed incapable of sensation when the oys- 
ter is deemed capable ? Though the organization of the 
animal may be more complex, and more perfect than 
that of the vegetable, the sensitive substance, or power 
to feel, is not an effect of organization. The more per- 
fect, or the more complex the organization, the more 
extended is the sphere of observation; but perception 
is not the more real. The meanest vegetable exhibits 
evidence of sensation; it has a circulatory, a nutritive, 
and it is said, a respiratory system ; it absorbs particles 
of air and of light. Its internal organs carry on cer- 
tain chemical processes, in which liquids are secreted 
for the nourishment of the plant. This is not the ope- 
ration of material substance; matter does not exhibit 



OF THOUGHT. 99 

the phenomena of life; it is incapable of being stimulat- 
ed; wherever there is excitement there must be some- 
thing to be excited, or to perceive the stimulus. 

Spirit then is a constituent part of vegetables. But 
the gradation does not stop here; minerals also are 
formed by a gradual increase, or growth; they exhibit 
phenomena which do not belong properly or essentially 
to matter. We say a vegetable has life, because it is 
acted on — not mechanically, but according to the laws 
of life — by the soil, the air, and the light around it; 
and in its turn acts upon these things, producing chemi- 
cal changes and assimilating them to its own substance. 
Minerals also are acted on, not mechanically— and act 
upon light, heat, air, and other substances in contact 
with them, producing chemical changes. — In the pheno- 
mena of chemical combination and decomposition there 
is something essentially different from the phenomena of 
simple matter ; there is some principle, or substance that 
feels and selects, that deserts one combination of sub- 
stances and enters into another. This is not a mechani- 
cal operation; it has no connexiou with gravitation, or 
repulsion. — But a mineral does not crawl, like a worm, 
therefore it does not feel. Is this a philosophical con- 
clusion? The mineral has not the organization which 
enables the worm to crawl ; but it has motions which 
are not resolvable into simple gravitation and repulsion. 
Why should oxygene desert one combination and enter 
into another matter? has no likings or antipathies. The 
perceiving, selecting substance is probably the stirring 
agent in all the phenomena of the laboratory; perhaps 
these phenomena might all be resolved into the contrac- 
tions and expansions of the material and spiritual sub- 
stances. 



iOO THE ALPHABET 

Methmks I hear some one exclaim, What! the mind, 
the immortal spirit reside in fire, in air, in vegetables ? 
Does the carrot feel pain in being prepared for the 
boiler? Ts the oak sensible of injury when the feller is 
at work? — What agonies he must feel if this were 
true; what cruelty to pluck a rose, or even to pull a 
noxious weed. Can the beneficent author of nature 
have ordered things so? Can divine goodness have 
created a universe of sensitive beings, every one the 
sport of accident, and subject every moment to suffer- 
ing? A universe in agonies and convulsions ! — Softly, 
gentle reader. All this is not implied in our doctrine ; 
when we give free exercise to sentiment, the imagina- 
tion is apt to carry us far beyond the limit of philosophi- 
cal truth. Some of those alledged consequences do 
follow from our theory; but they are also undeniable 
facts; they are observed in nature, and therefore, in- 
stead of forming an objection to our theory, they tend to 
establish it. Independently of inanimate nature, there 
is a universe, or at least a world of sensitive beings, the 
sport of accident and the subjects of pain — no disparage- 
ment to divine goodness; — and there are actual convul- 
sions of nature, which are not surely the throes of inert 
matter. But though spiritual substance is a component 
part of the oak and of the carrot, though the vegetative 
process is produced by the action of stimulus, and 
though to be stimulated, implies feeling, or perception, 
yet it does not imply that the oak or the carrot is sensi- 
ble of pain. Pain is more than simple perception; pain 
is the perception of evil. Though the tree perceive, or 
feel certain things, it may not perceive this particular 
object, that is, evil; it will of course, not perceive all 
that a more perfectly organized being will perceive; 
and though it should perceive the stroke of the axe^— 



OF THOUGHT. 101 

which however has not been affirmed,— yet it may not 
perceive any evil in that stroke, it may not experience 
any pain. A vegetable may be calculated to feel the 
stimulating qualities of the soil about its roots, without 
being capable of perceiving injury in its own destruc- 
tion. But were it admitted that these things feel pain 
under the knife or the axe, should this shock our reason 
more than that the lobster should exercise the perceptive 
faculty, or should it do more violence to our feelings 
than the death of an ox? Would it, even in that case, 
be more cruel to pluck a rose, than to draw a fish from 
the Mater? 

Spiritual substance is in its own nature immortal; 
but individual spirits, beings, parts separated from the 
common element, and joined to a portion of material 
substance, or power, are of course subject in themselves 
to decomposition, or dissolution. Their immortality is 
a gift. Spirits are immortal from no other cause, or 
necessity, than their being self-existent. No being can 
exist independently, in an absolute sense, unless it is 
self-existent; God himself cannot make a being inde- 
pendent of Himself. 

Spiritual substance is the principle of animal and of 
vegetable life, and it is concerned in the production of 
all those phenomena of inanimate nature which cannot 
be resolved into gravitation or repulsion. That the 
Supreme Deity is the immediate efficient agent in all the 
phenomena of vegetable growth, and decomposition, as 
well as in all the combinations and decompositions of 
mineral substances, is a doctrine that is both impious 
and absurd ; it attributes all the deformities, all the 
abortions, and all the decompositions and disgusting 
changes and appearances to the immediate agency of—,- 
we dare not finish the sentence. 



CHAPTER V. 



OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH. 

Pilate asked, What is truth? — and it is still made a 
question, what is the correct definition of truth. Some 
have professed to believe that there is really no such 
thing as truth. To this day it is believed and taught 
that there are no necessary truths in natural philosophy; 
but this belief arises out of the principle, that substances 
are made of nothing, and have no necessary relations; 
for to affirm a truth, is to affirm some relation of things. 
It is even now set down as undeniable, that truth is not 
a real, substantial thing, that it has no efficiency in it- 
self, and performs no part in nature. It is thence that 
it is believed to have no infallible criterion, and to be 
incapable of being logically defined. 

Yet though we should not be allowed to call truth by 
the general name of substance, it will readily be allow- 
ed to be self-existent, or necessary, and eternal ; we shall 
hardly be permitted to say that truth is an efficient 
cause, and the basis of a specific phenomenon ; yet we 
think it will be granted, that there is a certain state of 
things which cannot exist without the influence, or ope- 
ration of truth, that it is necessary to order, harmony, 
beauty — It is implied in our systems of religion, that 
truth is the conservator of the soul ; and in our ethics, 
that it is the bond of society, and the source of all that 
is fair, and lovely, and honorable, and of good report.—- 
Yet this theory, correct in itself, and founded in reason 
and fact, as well as in revelation, is accompanied with a 



OF THOUGHT. 103 

vague belief, or theoretical assumption that the conser- 
vative and beautifying qualities of truth belong to it only 
by appointment, and depend on the arbitrary will of the 
Creator. In the modern schools of philosophy and me- 
taphysics, instead of its being believed and taught that 
Truth makes the Creator to be what He is, holy, and 
upright, and just, it is believed and inculcated that the 
Creator makes truth to be what it is, to be the light of 
all who possess it. 

The scholastic theory of truth is precisely similar to 
that of material substance, — that its phenomena are not 
produced by its own necessary tendency, or by its own 
efficiency, and that they are connected with the substance 
only incidentally, or by divine appointment; — or, that 
the Creator makes power to be what it is, instead of 
power being; an essential part of his Being. This coin- 
cidence in the theories respecting truth, and material 
substance, might have suggested the thought, and have 
led to the inquiry whether truth may not be a substance, 
whether it may not have the same generical characteris- 
tic with matter. But it seems to be considered an in- 
dubitable fact, that truth has no quality, or phenomenon, 
no sensible appearance, or form by which to distinguish 
it from other realities ; nor any characteristic in common 
with any other objects of knowledge, by which it may 
be referred to a class, or genus. Hence it is that truth 
is deemed incapable of being defined, for a logical defi- 
nition points out the genus, and the specific difference 
of the thing defined. If truth belongs to no genus, or 
if it possess no characteristic in common with some 
other things ; and if it exhibit no phenomenon by which 
it can be distinguished from other objects, and by which 
at the same time it manifests its own existence or reality, 
then of necessitv it is undefinable, But if this were its 



i04 THE ALPHABET 

character, or its no character — it would be un discover, 
able too, it would be impossible to know, or perceive it : 
for truth is not perceived immediately or in a direct man- 
ner, as phenomena, or operations are ; truth is an invi- 
sible thing. 

To arrive at a correct knowledge and right definition 
of truth, the best, and perhaps the only successful me- 
thod, is that recommended by Sir Francis Bacon, that 
is, the investigation of facts. We must analyse the 
manner in which truth is actually perceived ; and we 
must inquire what is, in fact, the object of the mind in 
the perception of truth-— or what is the precise thing to 
which we give the general appellation of truth. It 
should be inquired whether truth has a resemblance, in 
any one point, to any other object, and whether it is ne- 
cessarily or uniformly attended with a specific phenome- 
non. 

If it be suggested that truth cannot be a substance, — 
we would ask, Why ? Is it because truth does not gra- 
vitate and repel, that we must not refer it to this genus? 
Is it because it is not tangible ? Gravitation and repul- 
sion characterize the species, not the genus ; they are 
peculiar to matter, and distinguish it from spirit and 
from truth — Spirit does not gravitate, and yet it is a sub- 
stance; it is a substance, because it is the efficient cause 
of a phenomenon \ it is spiritual substance, because its 
phenomenon is perception. If truth exhibit any species 
of phenomenon, if any effect is proper to truth only, then 
truth is the efficient cause of that phenomenon, or effect, 
and is a substantial, or indestructible being. 

The definitions heretofore offered of truth have gene- 
rally given a partial view of that object. Writers paint 
that aspect of truth with which they happen to be most 
familiar : or they describe the peculiarities jof the class 



OF THOUGHT. 105 

of truths which their particular pursuits have led them 
to investigate. But a regular definition should point 
out the characteristic which is common to all classes 
of truth, and which at the same time distinguishes truth 
from every other species of the same genus, that is, 
from every other substance, this is to point out the "spe- 
cific difference ;" and it should point out the genus, or 
the characteristic which it has in common with some 
other objects of knowledge — that is, with other sub- 
stances. 

"Truth," says Mr. Wollaston, "is the conformity of 
"those words or signs by which things are expressed, 
"to the things themselves." 

"Truth," says Dr. Tatham, "is of the nature and 
"essence of God ; like Him incomprehensible in the 
"whole, and ineffable in its sublimer parts. For these 
"and other reasons it cannot admit of an adequate defi- 
"nition.—*- God is Mind," continues the Doctor, "and 
"truth is consequently an attribute of mind." 

"I account that to be truth," says Dr. Beattie, "which 
"the constitution of our nature determines us to believe; 
"and that to be falsehood which the constitution of our 
"nature determines us to disbelieve." 

None of these definitions are logically regular; it is 
probable the authors did not intend them for such. We 
should indeed except that by Dr. Tatham, for though 
he professes to believe that truth "cannot admit of an 
"adequate definition," yet the latter part of the above 
extract: — "Truth is an attribute of mind," is a defini- 
tion in the very form prescribed by the father of dia- 
lectic. "Attribute" is the genus; "of mind," the spe- 
cific difference. But though this definition is logically 
regular, it is not philosophical ; it does not distinguish 
truth, from power, for this sect of philosophers define 
11, 



106 THE ALPHABET 

power in the same words, Power is an attribute o? 
mind. Now truth, and poiver are essentially different 
from each other, and they cannot both he properly de- 
fined by saying they are attributes of mind. But if the 
word attribute mean a phenomenon, or operation, then 
neither truth nor power are attributes, they are not phe- 
nomena. Truth has no necessary relation to mind; if 
it had, the brutes would possess it, there would be no 
irrational minds, none incapable of moral perception. 
But the knowledge of truth involves the exercise of rea- 
son; hence, mind may exist without truth, and truth 
certainly exists independently of mind. 

Truth is the efficient cause of harmony. Truth is a 
substance, a self- existent, indestructible being; and like 
other substances it is distinguished by, and perceived 
through a specific phenomenon. 

Dr. Wollaston took his idea of truth from oue class 
of truths, the truth of words, or historical truth; and 
his„ definition is formed on this particular view, or on 
the connexion between truth as it is in itself, and the 
words by which it is expressed. "Truth," says he, 
i% the conformity of words or signs to the things ex- 
"pressed. 5? This is truth as opposed to falsehood ; 
nothing but words, or artificial signs can be falsified. 
But truth exists independently of words, and is to be 
distinguished from other things, as well as from false- 
liood ; and we shall find, that the characteristic by 
which truth is distinguished from other species of the 
same genus, that is, from other substances, is also the 
only infallible criterion hv which to distinguish truth 
from falsehood and error. Harmony is the characteris- 
tic of truth, and constitutes demonstrative evidence. 

But this class of truths, the truth of "words," would 
be more accurately defined by saying, that it is the 



OF THOUGHT. 10f 

conformity of jjropositions to the relations of things as 
they really exist. Single words express "things," but 
single words do not express truths. The word power 
expresses a certain object of knowledge, but it expres- 
ses neither truth nor falsehood. It is only when words 
affirm, or deny some relation of things, that they are 
either true or false. Every proposition affirms some 
relation of things; and a proposition is true, when it 
expresses the real, and none but the real relations of 
things, the relations as to time, place, action, cause, ef- 
fect, &c. When we say power produces motion, we 
affirm a specific relation, the relation of cause and effect, 
between power and motion. The truth affirmed, or 
"expressed" in this proposition, is that relation of 
cause and effect, between power and motion; but the 
truth of the proposition, is its relation of conformity to 
that relation of cause and effect as it really is. The 
truth of the proposition, and the truth expressed by the 
proposition, are different truths; the last, viz. that power 
produces motion, is a necessary eternal truth; but the 
first, the conformity of the proposition to the eternal 
relation, is an incidental truth; as words are only the 
conventional and arbitrary signs of things, they can 
have no natural or necessary conformity to the things 
they express. Hence words, and even propositions 
may have a "conformity" to things, and yet be false ; 
if this were not so, there could be no such thing as 
falsehood. I may say, matter perceives. The words 
of this proposition have a conformity to the things 
they express, and to the relation also which they ex- 
press; they affirm the relation of cause and effect, or of 
agent and operation, between matter and perception. 
But though matter, and perception are both real objects, 
no such relation subsists between them, therefore the 



108 THE ALPHABET 

proposition is false. Words have always a conformity, 
an artificial conformity, to the things they express 5 
otherwise they would not be the signs of those things ; 
but they sometimes affirm relations which do not exist, 
or which do not belong to the things of which they are 
affirmed ; and it is then they are false. 

Dr. Beattie's remarks apply, almost exclusively, to 
general and necessary truths; for it is only this class 
of truths of which it may in some sense be said, that 
"the constitution of our nature determines us to believe" 
them ; that is, when the evidence of a truth is presented 
to a mind unbiassed, and capable of appreciating, or of 
perceiving the nature of evidence, that mind necessarily 
believes, or perceives the truth. But the mind in its 
best state, is not determined by its constitution alone, 
and independently of evidence, to the belief, or percep- 
tion of any specific truth ; if it were, it should have that 
perception, or a knowledge of that truth, from the ear- 
liest moment of its existence. As soon as mind exists, 
it perceives; "the constitution of its nature" absolutely 
determines it to perception, but not to the perception 
of truth, or of any particular object. The perception 
of a particular object depends on external circumstances, 
as well as on the constitution of the mind. Every truth 
is a relation of some two things; and when the mind 
has a knowledge of those things, and perceives some 
necessary relation arising from the nature of the things, 
then it perceives a necessary truth. 

But the Doctor's remarks are not universally true 
even of general or necessary truths. The "constitution 
of our nature" is not so infallible, as uniformly, or 
necessarily to exclude the belief of falsehood; hence, 
belief is not the criterion of truth, nor disbelief, of false- 
hood. The Doctor's definition of truth seems to imply, 



OF THOUGHT. [ 109 

that the constitution of the mind is such, that it will 
necessarily believe truth, and reject falsehood. But if 
this were true, the circumstance would characterize, not 
the truth, but the mind ; it would characterize the mind, 
which perceives, not the object perceived, Perception 
is the operation of mind, and the perception of truth 
characterizes the rational mind ; but to be perceived 
does not characterize any thing, does not distinguish 
one thing from another. Besides, it is a notorious fact 
that we are often deceived, that we often mistake false- 
hood for self-evident necessary truth. This arises, not 
from the want of an infallible criterion of truth, but from 
the fallibility of the human mind. — Considering the dif- 
ficulty which arises in many cases, in ascertaining the 
truth, the single circumstance, that we believe a propo- 
sition, is not a sufficient test of its truth. 

The perception, or belief of truth, is characteristic of 
the mind, rather than of truth ; that is, it distinguishes 
the rational mind from the irrational. Although the 
perception of truth do not arise from the constitution of 
the mind necessarily, nor even from that of the rational 
mind, independently of evidence, yet the perception of 
truth constitutes rationality; when the two causes meet, 
when evidence, the existing cause, is presented to the 
rational mind, the efficient cause, the effect, the percep- 
tion of truth necessarily follows. And though there are 
other invisible objects beside truth, the knowledge of 
which are acquired through the medium of evidence, the 
perception of any object through the medium of evi- 
dence, involves the perception of truth, or of some ne- 
cessary relation. Every logical deduction, implies the 
perception of a necessary relation between the conclu? 
sion and the premises. 



HO THE ALPHABET 

It is a singular anomaly in philosophy, to represent 
the perception of truth as characterizing truth, and at 
the same time as arising necessarily from the "constitu- 
tion of our nature ;" or from the constitution of the 
mind. Dr. Eeattie is not singular in this. The per- 
ception of truth is a complex phenomenon, it does not 
arise, singly, either from the constitution of the mind, 
nor from the nature of truth; and therefore is not the 
distinguishing characteristic of either. Perception is 
thQ characteristic of Mind, or of Spirit, — harmony is 
that of Truth.— Truth exists independently of the 
mind, and of being perceived; therefore, the perception 
of truth does not characterize truth; and the human 
mind exists long before it is capable of perceiving the 
nature of truth and evidence, therefore the perception of 
truth does not arise necessarily from the constitution of 
the mind. Before the mind can perceive necessary 
truth, it must be capable of appreciating evidence. 

That belief does not characterize truth is demonstrat- 
ed by the fact, that there are other invisible objects of 
knowledge, which are essentially different from truth, 
but which produce in the mind as firm a conviction of 
their reality as truth can do. Hence truth is to be dis- 
tinguished, and it is in fact distinguished, not from false- 
hood only, which should be disbelieved, but also from 
other real objects of belief Power, or material sub- 
stance presents itself to the mind by an evidence, or a 
criterion as infallible as that of truth, and obtains as firm 
a belief in its reality ; y&t that belief does not charac- 
terize power, because there are other objects, different 
from power, which produce belief. The distinguishing 
characteristic of power, is motion, its own peculiar phe- 
nomenon ; motion is the immediate effect, or the opera- 
tion, of. power; belief is the remote effect, produced in 



OF THOUGHT. Ill 

the mind by the operation upon the external organs of 
sense. Belief therefore is an incidental, and not a ne- 
cessary effect of the existence of power.— And the dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of truth is its own peculiar 
phenomenon, that is, harmony ; the belief, or perception 
of truth is the remote effect, of which, harmony is the 
exciting, or secondary cause. Mind is the efficient 
cause of perception, but Truth is the efficient cause of 
harmony. 

Br. Tatham seems to have had in his mind's eye, 
truth as it is distinguished from other real beings, or 
substances. He says, "Truth is of the Essence of 
"God ;" that is to say, truth is of the Substance, or Be- 
ing of God. He seems to have had a vision of truth in 
her genuine form ; but he has had also some theoretical 
notions, which threw an obscurity over the etbject of his 
contemplation, and infused themselves into his definition. 
The truth seems to have forced itself upon his mind, in 
despite of a theory which he held in opposition to it : 
for he tells us that "Truth is of the Essence of God ;" 
but again he says, "'Truth is an attribute" He re- 
fers truth first to the genus substance, or essence; and 
again he refers it to the genus attribute, or quality. 
Now an essence, and an attribute are distinct things ; 
substance, and quality are different genera. Although 
truth belongs essentially to God, it is certainly incorrect 
language to say that truth is an attribute of God. 
Truth is the basis of certain attributes of God, of justice, 
holiness, beauty; these are attributes of God; but they 
are attributes of a God of truth; a God without truth 
would not be holy, or just, would have no beauty in His 
character, any more than a God without power would 
be sublime and awful, an object of admiration and of 
fear. 



lie THE ALPHABET 

Truth is the efficient cause of harmony — or of beauty, 
which is harmony, or proportion of form, or of parts. 
Harmony is a simple phenomenon different from either 
motion, or perception, and requires a distinct efficient 
cause. Truth is the only cause which is adequate to 
the production of harmony; neither power, nor spirit. 
unconnected with truth, produces this phenomenon. The 
operation of power is motion; that of spirit, 'percep- 
tion; harmony is an operation distinct from either, and 
requires a distinct efficient cause. In fact the human 
mind, wherever it is capable of reasoning, or of the 
exercise of common sense, assigns a distinct efficient 
cause to this phenomenon. Wherever harmony, or 
beauty is exhibited to the senses, or to the mind, it is 
referred to truth as its ultimate cause, or that which is 
necessarily at the foundation of the phenomenon. — Har- 
mony indeed never exhibits itself to the senses but in 
connexion with the phenomena of power ; the writing of 
a proposition, and the sound of the words which convey 
a truth, are operations of mechanical power; but no one 
confounds the truth of a proposition with the sound of 
the words, or with the written characters. Yet though 
common sense distinguishes practically the sound from 
the sense, when philosophy comes to investigate the 
distinctive character of truth, she is apt to confound 
that character with its adjuncts ; she invariably brings 
along with her some dogma which she throws over 
truth, and then judges of her character through this 
false medium. — In music, harmony is connected with 
sound, but the harmony is a phenomenon distinct from 
the sound; the efficient cause, or principle of the sound, 
is mechanical power; but the principle of the harmony, 
or the first principles of music, are certain immutable 
rules, or truths. No one ever thinks of ascribing music 



OF THOUGHT. 113 

to power as its sole, or as its efficient cause ; when the 
foundation, or first principles of music is sought for, it 
is sought among the truths. We practically recognize 
the necessary relation of truth and harmony, both in 
common life, and in the sciences; the harmony of a 
truth which is sought, with a truth already known, is 
the evidence, or the test of the genuineness of the former. 
Truth is always consistent with truth, or in harmony 
with truth. 

Truth is the foundation of beauty, or of harmony of 
parts in form, or figure ; such as beauty of architecture, 
beauty of person, &c. Architecture is an art founded 
on certain principles, or truths, and never could be 
brought to any degree of perfection independently of 
those principles; neither is personal beauty produced 
by its divine author at random, or without truth and 
science. "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of 
"his way, before his works of old. When he prepared 
"the heavens I was there." — Truth is the foundation of 
moral beauty; it is the basis of honour, integrity, jus- 
tice, &c. 

Harmony constitutes demonstrative evidence, or it is 
the criterion of mathematical and metaphysical truths 
Every demonstration in geometry proceeds upon the 
harmony, or agreement of the proposition, with the de- 
finition, or diagram to which the proposition relates. 
Thus, if it is to be demonstrated that the three angles 
of a triangle are equal to two right angles; the mathe- 
matician proceeds to analyse the two angles and the 
three angles, and when it is found that from their na- 
ture they necessarily harmonize with what is affirmed 
in the proposition, then the proposition is demonstrated 
to be a universal truth. The axioms are established 
on the same species of evidence, their harmony with the 
15 



114 THE ALPHABET 

definitions. Two straight lines cannot intersect each 
other in more points than one. This truth is said to 
be perceived intuitively, or without reasoning and with- 
out evidence. But this is not the fact. This negative 
principle may be resolved into the positive fact, that 
when two straight lines intersect each other, the farther 
they are produced the farther they diverge. This ge- 
neral fact is immediately founded in the definition — A 
straight line is the shortest that can he drawn between 
two points. Every negative principle, if genuine, is 
founded in some positive principle, which is ultimately 
founded in the definition, or predicament of the thing 
to which the principle relates. And it is the harmony 
of the axiom with the definition, or predicament of the 
thing to which the axiom relates, that is the evidence 
of the truth of the latter, and establishes it beyond con- 
tradiction. 

It is the same in metaphysics. Definition. Matter 
is the efficient cause of gravitation. Hence the axiom — 
Gravitatidn is a universal lata of matter, or, matter 
gravitates uniformly, and nothing but matter gravitates. 
This axiom has no other foundation than in that defini- 
tion, or in the nature of material substance ; and it evi- 
dently implies, and is implied in that definition, that 
matter is the efficient cause of gravitation. If matter is 
the efficient cause of gravitation, and if like causes pro- 
duce like effects, then gravitation is a universal law of 
matter : but if matter is not the efficient cause of gravi- 
tation, and if it is not a universal truth, that like causes 
produce like effects, then the axiom that matter gravi- 
tates uniformly, or at all times and all places and cir- 
cumstances, is a groundless assumption. But the defi 
nition is in fact recognized in the axiom; and it is 
the perfect harmony of the axiom, with the definition. 



OF THOUGHT. 115 

or with the known and tacitly recognized predicament 
of matter, that demonstrates the genuineness of the 
axiom. In auy syllogism, it is the harmony of the con- 
clusion, with the premises, that constitutes the evidence , 
or proves the truth of the conclusion. Every invisible 
object of knowledge manifests itself to the mind through 
the evidence of some phenomenon, or of an operation 
which is immediately perceived ; gravitation is the evi- 
dence of the existence of matter, or of power ; percep- 
tion is the evidence of the existence of spirit; and har- 
mony is the evidence of the reality of truth. 

But it may be asked, If harmony is the infallible cri- 
terion of truth, and is generally recognized as such, how 
do we ever come to be deceived? If harmony is neces- 
sarily connected with truth, and if it uniformly excite 
the belief, or perception of truth, what is it that excites 
the belief of that which is false? How is it that we 
sometimes imagine that we perceive a truth, when no 
truth, but a falsehood is presented to the mind?— 
This anomaly does not arise from the nature of truth, 
nor from the nature of demonstrative evidence; but 
from the imperfection of human knowledge ; it does not 
arise from the want of an infallible criterion of truth, 
but from the fallibility of the human mind. Without 
entering into any elaborate discussion of the causes and 
consequences of this imperfection, we will simply state 
a few facts. Although harmony uniformly attends 
truth, and uniformly produces the perception of truth in 
the reasoning mind, yet the mind, as well as the ear, is 
sometimes deceived by an imperfect harmony ; — or, 
though truth must harmonize with truth, so falsehood 
may harmonize with falsehood, while from the limited, 
ness of our knowledge, we may not be possessed of the 
fundamental truths with which those falsehoods do not 



116 THE ALPHABET 

harmonize, and which would prove their fallacy. Hence, 
a superficial knowledge of a subject, sometimes leads to 
greater absurdities than perfect ignorance ; and hence 
the necessity for ascending to first principles when any 
difficulty is to be solved. 

Every real truth will be found in harmony, and false- 
hood will be discordant, with the true definition of the 
thing to which they relate, or of which they are affirm- 
ed. An instance of this has been given in the chapter 
on material substance. That "Power cannot be with- 
out a subject," is a principle very similar to the axiom, 
two straight lines cannot intersect each other in more 
points than one. That is, these principles are similar 
in a logical point of view, or considered as principles of 
reasoning; they differ in the subjects they relate to, the 
one relating to the nature of power, the other to the na- 
ture of a straight line. They are both axioms; and 
they are both negatives ; and each is resolvable into the 
definition of the thing to which it relates. They both 
appear intuitively certain^ or they appear certain from 
their harmony with the definitions to which they respec- 
tively relate. Harmony is intuitive evidence. That 
two straight lines cannot intersect each other in more 
points than one, is a genuine truth, because it is found- 
ed in, or harmonizes with the true definition of a 
straight line. But the metaphysical axiom is false, 
because it is founded in a false definition of power. 
The axiom, power cannot be without a subject, takes 
for granted that power is an attribute, a quality, or the 
operation of a cause. It supposes that power is con- 
nected with spirit in the relation of cause and effect ; it 
supposes power to have the same relation to spirit, that 
perception has to spirit, or the same that motion has 
to power. But all this is false and absurd; power is, 



OF THOUGHT. 117 

not the operation of a cause, but the efficient cause of an 
operation. So that instead of real and perfect harmony, 
this axiom, power cannot be without a subject, has pro- 
duced confusion and "harsh discord" in metaphysical 
science. But when it is brought to the touchstone of 
genuine fact, it betrays its unsubstantiality, it vanishes 
like the shadows of the night at the approach of the 
morning. 

Thus mathematics and metaphysics proceed upon 
the principle that harmony is the characteristic of 
truth. Prophets and poets recognize the same princi- 
ple. Truth and harmony, or beauty, are associated in 
their writings, in a way that plainly indicates a convic- 
tion in the minds of the writers, that those two things 
are necessarily connected. 

The prophets and apostles claim the first notice. 
The song of Solomon contains a variety of rapturous 
expressions of the beauty of the church and its King, 
of both which truth is the foundation and distinguish- 
ing characteristic. Many of those expressions are 
highly figurative ; but some of them are plain, and the 
sense incontrovertible. — "Thou art beautiful, O my 
"love, as Tirza; comely as Jerusalem." — "Behold, 
"thou art fair, ray love ; behold, thou art fair." — 
"Thou art all /air, my love; there is no spot in thee." — 
"My beloved is white and ruddy, the chief among ten 
"thousand, — yea, he is altogether lovely." — King Da- 
vid who is a prophet and a poet says, "Thou art fairer 
"than the children of men, grace is poured into thy 
"lips." St. Paul associates truth, with beauty thus : 
"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
"honest, just, pure, whatsoever things are lovely," or 
fieauttful, and "of good report." 



118 THE ALPHABET 

The works of poets furnish the most ample testimony 
in favor of the connexion between Truth and Harmony. 

"Goddess of the lyre, 
"Which rules the accents of the moving- spheres, 
"Wilt thou, eternal Harmony descend 
"And join this festive train ? for with thee comes 
"The guide, the guardian of their lovely sports, 
"Majestic Tnith ,"* 

"Thus was beauty sent from heaven, 
"The lovely ministress of Truth and good 
"In this dark world ; for Truth and good are one. 
"And beauty dwells in them, and they in her, 
"With like participation."* 

"Alas ! how faint, 
"How slow the dawn, of beauty and of truth 
"Breaks the reluctant shades of gothic night 
"Which yet involve the nations !"* 

"Blest be the day I 'scaped the wrangling crew, 

"Of Phyro's maze, — — * 

Cf And held high converse with the god-like few, 
"Who to th* enraptur'd heart, and ear, and eye, 
"Teach beauty, virtue, truth, and love, and melody ."f 

In these stanzas the connexion of truth with beauty, 
or with harmony, is affirmed in direct terms ; and there 
are innumerable instances in the works of the poets, 
in which this connection is implied. We will notice a 
few. 

"Is there a heart which music cannot melt ? 
"Alas ! how is that rugged heart forlorn ! 



"He needs not woo the Muse, he is her scorn, 

"The sophists rope of cobweb he shall twine ; 

"Mope ov'r the schoolman's peevish page, and mourn."? 

" Song is but the eloquence of Truth."H 

* Akenside. f Beattie's Minstrel, t Minstrel. fGampbelL 



OF THOUGHT. 119 

"The only amaranthine flow'r on earth 

"Is virtue,* the only lasting treasure truth."f 

"Where now that gloom which hid 

"Fair Truth from vulgar ken.—- $ 

The epithets fair, lovely, beautiful, and sweet, are 
applied to truth, but never to power, nor to spirit. 
Power is sublime; spirit, or mind is interesting, or is 
the object of benevolence; but truth is fair,* beautiful, 
or lovely. 

Truth is a substance, a being, or thing which has a 
permanent existence, and is the basis of a specific phe- 
nomenon. In many minds the general term substance 
is associated with the idea of a particular species ; that 
is, with the idea of material substance. To these minds 
the general term conveys no general meaning; it con- 
veys only the ideas of gravitation and repulsion, or of 
solid ponderous being; — they can hardly conceive of 
substance that is not tangible. Yet we have the same 
kind of evidence for the existence and substantiality of 
truth, that we have for the existence and substantiality 
of matter, or of spirit ; truth, like these other things, is 
the subject of a quality, or the basis of a phenomenon. 
A specific phenomenon is acknowledged both by the 
senses and by the mind ; reason, or common sense as- 
signs to this phenomenon a specific efficient cause, or 
invisible basis; and that basis we denominate truth, 
But as in the perception of gravitation and of matter, 
we are apt to confound the perception of the phenome- 
non, with the perception of the substance ; so it is with 
respect to truth and harmony, we are apt to confound 
the perception of harmony, with the perception of 
truth. 

* Virtuey moral beauty, f Cowper. t More, 



120 THE ALPHABET 

But truth is too shadowy a thing to be conceived 
of as a substance ; we cannot handle it with our hands, 
or shape it into form, figure. Very right; truth is a 
subborn thing; it will give an impression, but receive 
none. Is it then more shadowy than spirit, which re- 
ceives, but does not give impressions? Would not 
power* or matter appear as shadowy, if we were in the 
habit of withdrawing the senses from the observation of 
its phenomena ? 

But it is hard to conceive of truth as exercising an 
efficiency, as being an operative cause. It is true, we 
cannot conceive why truth operates, or why it produces 
harmony, but we do conceive the fact, we know that 
harmony is the offspring and evidence of truth. But 
this does not satisfy us, our metaphysical predilections 
demand something more ; we are not content with the 
knowledge of an efficient, unless we can also discover 
a final cause, a reason for every phenomenon. There 
is a rooted prejudice in the mind which supposes, that 
every operation, whether simple or complex, is, in some 
way or other, the effect of volition ; that mind, or spirit 
is the only ultimate efficient cause in existence, and 
power, and truth are secondary causes, or attributes, 
( qualities. J 

But we cannot tell why truth harmonizes, any more 
than we can tell why matter gravitates. — We shall 
hereafter consider of the reason why, or the manner in 
which truth affects the external organs- of sense; it will 
be shewn, that truth affects the senses by means of its 
harmony, or its sweetness ; but this is a different tiling 
from giving a reason why, or accounting for the fact, 
that truth produces harmony. We can give the causes 
of gravitation and of harmony, but we can give no rea- 
son why the one cause produces gravitation, or why the 



OF THOUGHT. 121 

other produces harmony. These are ultimate facts ; 
they caunot be accounted for, otherwise than by attri- 
buting the phenomena to their respective ultimate causes. 
Gravitation and harmony are not voluntary operations, 
considering each with respect to its proper efficient 
cause; power contracts, or matter gravitates — necessari- 
ly, not voluntarily; and truth harmonizes, not voluntari- 
ly, but necessarily. Harmony, or beauty is the idea, 
the image, or visible form of the invisible substance 
called truth. 

Though it may be thought difficult to comprehend, or 
extravagant to affirm a universal and necessary relation 
between truth, and harmony, there is nevertheless a 
vague belief of the fact universal among mankind. And 
it is not so much the fact, as it is the ground, or evidence 
of the necessity and universality of the fact, that we 
sometimes puzzle ourselves about. Some are of opinion, 
that demonstration belongs exclusively to. the mathema- 
tical sciences ; yet there is nothing more common than 
to talk of demonstration, and to effect it too, in moral 
and natural philosophy. 

But there is much greater diversity of opinion about 
what it is that constitutes demonstrative evidence, or 
what is the criterion of truth. Tn the philosophy of 
matter and spirit, we proceed by investigating facts ; 
and we judge of the nature or character of these invisi- 
ble objects, by their phenomena. Their phenomena 
constitute their character. And in the philosophy of 
truth, is it not proper to proceed in a similar manner? 
This, too, is confessedly an invisible object of know- 
ledge ; and the way to arrive at a philosophical defini- 
tion of this object, is to investigate the facts relating to 
it, the manner in which the mind acquires a knowledge 
of it, or to inquire what is the/orm, the dress, the visible 
16 



122 THE ALPHABET 

operation, or the phenomenon through, or in which this 
invisible object presents itself to the mind. 

All are agreed that there is such a thing as demon- 
strative evidence, or an appropriate medium, a species 
of evidence which renders the truth perfectly certain. 
The question is, what is, precisely, that species of evi- 
dence? Some seem to suppose, that in any act of rea- 
soning, the premises is the evidence of the truth of the 
conclusion, or that one truth is evidence of another. 
But how is the truth of the premises perceived ? It is an 
invisible object as well as the truth of the conclusion. 
To say that one truth is evidence of another truth, or 
that one truth causes another to be perceived, is just 
about as correct as to say, that one body causes another 
to move, when it is well known, that it is not the one 
body at rest, or simply, because it is body, that causes 
the other to move, but that it is the one body in motion 
that impels, or causes the other to move. So it is with 
truth; the one truth does not cause the other to be per- 
ceived, or to manifest itself to the mind, but it is the 
phenomenon, it is the harmony of the truth of the con- 
clusion, with the truth of the premises, that demonstrates 
the former. Evidence in its very nature is something 
perceived immediately; but truth is not perceived im- 
mediately; it is therefore not one truth that demon- 
strates another truth, or causes it to be perceived; any 
more than a body at rest, makes an impression upon 
another body, or causes it to move ; but it is the pheno- 
menon, the harmony of truth with truth, that demon- 
strates its reality. 

The simple fact, that harmony is connected with 
truth, is discovered in the first place by observation, or 
in the same way that we discover that gravitation is 
connected with matter; but the ground of the univer- 



OF THOUGHT. 123 

sality of that connexion, or of that fact, is to be found 
only in the nature of the things themselves. In an 
analysis of the natures of truth, and harmony, we find 
that the one is an effect, of which the other is the ef- 
ficient cause, or is that, without which the effect cannot 
he produced; hence they are universally connected. 
The unsophisticated mind goes directly to this result ; 
common sense, in the pursuit of truth, takes for granted 
her necessary connexion with harmony, and whatever is 
found in this garb, is received as truth. But when the 
philosopher comes to define truth, he thinks it necessary 
to assign her some metaphysical character, or some in- 
visible dress ; and thus places her out of sight altogether, 
and beyond the reach of inquiry. 

It is hard to conceive of power as being the efficient 
cause of certain phenomena of matter, because these 
phenomena are sometimes associated with the pheno- 
mena of mind ; and because of the long cherished belief 
that power is an attribute of mind, and that all the 
phenomena of matter some way or other depend on 
mind. And for a similar reason it is hard to conceive 
of truth as being the efficient cause of harmony; it is 
because harmony is associated with the phenomena of 
both matter and spirit. Because harmony of sound is 
produced under the direction of mind, there is a vague 
belief that mind, or spirit is the ultimate cause of har- 
mony in general, and of truth also. But the mind that 
hath music in itself must have been previously possess- 
ed of truth ; it must have acquired, in an analysis of 
the phenomena, those mathematical principles of quan- 
tity and number, which constitute the first principles of 
music. Even a child who performs a regular tune, 
must in some measure comprehend these principles, and 
must in some sort have performed this analysis ; else 



124 THE ALPHABET 

how should he make his quantities aad numbers con- 
form to the rules of harmony. 

Beauty of architecture consists in the harmony, or 
right proportion of parts, and this we are wont to ascribe 
to the mind of the architect, as the ultimate cause of the 
phenomenon, the beauty ; and it is just to do so ; but it 
is to a mind informed, or possessed of the first truths, or 
rules of the art. A mind uninformed of those first 
truths, has no capacity to create beauty; as soon should 
we expect impulse where there is no power, as beauty, 
or harmony where there is no truth. Truth is essential 
to all the arts, as much so to painting, and to poetry, as 
to music or to architecture. 

Truth is not an attribute of mind, nor is it essential 
to the existence of mind; yet truth is undoubtedly a 
constituent element of every reasoning mind ; for reason 
is employed only in the acquisition of truth, or in dis- 
covering the relations of things. The spiritual sub- 
stance is also a constituent element of the substance of 
the mind; it is a distinct thing from truth, and exists 
without it ; as truth may, and does exist independently 
of spirit. It will not be denied that truth is indepen- 
dent of mind. That two and two are equal to four, is 
a truth though it be not perceived. Truth is not an at- 
tribute, or operation of the mind ; it is not an operation 
at all. It is only by confounding the perception of 
truth, with truth itself, that we come to call the latter an 
attribute of mind. Perception is the attribute of mind ; 
truth is the subject of the attribute of harmony. 

If truth is not the efficient cause of harmony, there 
is no adequate cause of this phenomenon, that has been 
discovered; or, contrary to the habitual proceeding of 
reason, she has not assigned a specific ultimate cause, 
to this specific phenomenon. If truth were not that 



OF THOUGHT. 125 

cause, or were not recognized as such, we should then 
have a phenomenon, or quality, without a substance, or 
basis, — an operation, without an adequate cause; we 
should have truth, a thing independent in its nature, 
and eternally existent, yet producing no effect in nature, 
sustaining no part in the universe of being. We should 
have a being, or thing invisible in itself, and exhibiting 
no visible operation, no evidence of its existence, and 
yet perceived by the mind ; perceived neither mediately, 
nor immediately, yet perceived. We should have a 
cause without an effect, and an effect without a cause; 
or rather, an effect and its cause disjoined — uncon- 
nected. 

Truth is but a name, if it be not an efficient cause. 
We have n<? powers, or organs, of perception, except- 
ing those of sense and consciousness, and that of rea- 
soning. Sense and consciousness perceive effects, ope- 
rations ; reason perceives causes ; reason infers the ex- 
istence of efficient causes, from the operations perceived 
by sense and consciousness. If truth is neither cause 
nor effect- — substance ner phenomenon — it has no ex- 
istence. 

Truth is a self-existent efficient cause, and its mode 
of operation is harmony. Its more remote effect is to 
please, and to govern mind ; the former, that is har- 
mony, is the effect which truth produces in itself, it is 
involved in its nature ; the latter, that is, to please and 
to govern, are the effects it produces in other beings, or 
substances, beside itself; the former is a accessary ef- 
fect, the latter is incidental/— Power moves, or impels 
by means of its primary operation, contraction; spirit 
perceives in expansion; and truth governs, or influences 
the mind by means of its harmony. The mind govern- 
ed by power, or force, is a slave; ungoverned, or 



126 THE ALPHABET 

governed by passion, is a demon ; governed by truth, 
is divine. 

In a treatise on truth it would be unpardonable not 
to notice the doctrine of Professor Stewart, respecting 
the nature of truth and evidence. The Professor's re- 
marks are rather vague and general, and somewhat de- 
sultory. The most condensed and determinate form in 
which his theory of truth is to be found, is in the second 
volume of "Elements of Philosophy," and in chapter 
first, entitled "Of the fundamental Laws of human Be- 
lief, or primary Elements of human Reason," and is 
contained in the following paragraphs. 

"I begin," says the Professor, "with a review of 
"some of those primary truths, a conviction of which is 
"necessarily implied in all our thoughts and in all our 
"actions ; and which seem, on that account, rather to 
"form constituent and essential elements of reason, than 
"objects with which reason is conversant." 

The primary truths to which I mean to confine my 
attention at present are : 1. Mathematical Axioms ; 
2. Truths (or more properly speaking, Laws of Belief,) 
inseparably connected with the exercise of conscious- 
ness, perception, memory, and reasoning.* 

The following passage contains a few specimens of 
the "Laws of Belief" with the author's own observa- 
tions concerning them. 

From such propositions as these, "1 exist; I am the 
"same person to-day that I was yesterday; the material 
"world has an existence independent of my mind ; the 
"general laws of nature will continue, in future, to 
"operate uniformly as in time past, no inference can 
"be deduced, any more than from the intuitive truths 

* Elements of Philosophy, p. 25. 2d Vol. New York ed. 



OF THOUGHT. 127 

"prefixed to the elements of Euclid. Abstracted from 
"other data, they are perfectly barren in themselves ; 
"nor can any possible combination of them help the 
"mind forward, one single step in its progress. It is 
"for this reason, that instead of calling them, with 
"other writers, first principles, I have distinguished 
"them by the title of fundamental laws of belief; the 
"former word seeming to denote, according to common 
"usage, some fact, or some supposition, from which a 
"series of consequences may be deduced/'* 

In the chapter throughout from which these para- 
graphs are extracted, the author's design is to prove, 
that the "laws of belief/' or the "primary truths" of 
philosophy, are neither the result of reasoning, nor a 
foundation for reasoning, that they are not discovered, 
as facts are, in an investigation of the phenomena, and 
that unlike facts, they afford no data from which a con- 
clusion can be drawn. — He labors to prove that truths 
are perceived intuitively, or independently of reasoning 
and of evidence. He seems to consider the knowledge 
of truth as innate ; for he says it "seems rather to be 
"a constituent element of reason, than an object with 
"which reason is conversant." And he contends far- 
ther, that first truths, or "elements of reason," are not 
principles of reasoning, that "abstracted from other 
"data, they are perfectly barren in themselves, nor can 
"they help the mind forward one single step in its pro : 
"gress." — In the first section the author labors iorprsfcJjl 
that the principles of mathematical science "are, not the 
"axioms, but the definitions" — The second section is 
intended to shew, that the "laws of belief" are pre- 
cisely analogous to mathematical axioms in this respect; 
that from them no inference can be deduced. 

* Page 55, 



128 THE ALPHABET 

If it be true, that the perception, or belief of truth, is 
not the result of reasoning, then that belief is not a ra- 
tional, or philosophical belief ;•— and it is not then ne- 
cessary to be endowed with reason, to comprehend, or 
perceive truth, for rationality is not requisite to the per- 
ception of that which is perceived without reasoning. — 
And if it be true that first truths are not a foundation for 
reasoning, then truth has no efficiency, and no influence 
over mind; it is not a guide in the pursuit of know- 
ledge, nor in distinguishing between right and wrong ; 
it is not, either in science or in morals, "a lamp to our 
"feet, and a light to our path." If fundamental truths 
have so little character, and so little authority, other 
truths cannot have more. But if indeed first truths do 
not "help the mind forward one single step," what is 
the value of truth? What is its use? If truth is with- 
out efficiency and without influence or operation, it 
would seem to be about as useless a thing as matter 
would be if made of nothing. But if first truths, or 
"fundamental laws of belief," are not principles of rea- 
soning, in what sense are they fundamental ? 

The Professor's theory of the perception of truth is 
a refinement on Dr. Beattie's definition of truth. "I ac- 
count that to be truth," says the Doctor, "which the 
"constitution of our nature determines us to believe." 
The Professor says, "primary truths — seem rather to be 
"constituent and essential elements of reason, than ob- 
^tn<*&r~v4th which reason is conversant." — There are 
<Certain propositions which the Professor instances as 
"truths, or fundamental laws of belief;" such as that 
"the material world has an existence independent of 
"my mind ; — I am the same to-day, that I was yester- 
"day ;" &c. But it is sometimes the belief of one of 
those propositions, that he speaks of as being a "law of 



OF THOUGHT. 129 

"belief." "The belief/' says he, "which all men en- 
tertain of the existence of the material world, be- 
longs to the same class of ultimate or elemental laws 
"of thought."*— Thus according to the Professor, that 
matter exists, is a "law of belief," and that matter is 
perceived, is a "law of belief;" — or in other words, the 
existence of matter, is a "law of belief," and the belief 
in the existence of matter, is a "law of belief," and 
"laws of belief" are '"truths" analogous to mathema- 
tical axioms. f In this way the author has woven a web, 
which catches many a fly. His idea of truth has evi- 
dently been obscured, by being blended, in his mind, 
with the idea of the perception, or belief of truth. 

The Professor's grand aim is to establish a system 
of logic, or to point out the most proper method of in- 
vestigation and reasoning in philosophy and metaphy- 
sics. To this end he is laboring to shew what is the 
characteristic of truth; or rather, he labors to prove 
that truth has no criterion, no decided characteristic,—- 
excepting the circumstance that it is believed, Accord- 
ingly he says, that truths are "more properly" termed 
"laws of belief;" by which term he seems to signify, 
tliat every truth is a law of the mind, in the same sense 
that perception is a law of the mind, or that gravitation 
is a law of matter, — for he says, "truths seem rather to 
"be elements of reason, than objects with which reason 
"is conversant." In giving this title — "laws of belief," 
to truths, the author seems not to have distinguished 
between the perception, or belief of truth, and the 
truth perceived, or to have confounded truths, with the 
phenomena of mind ; which is the same error into which 



* El. Phil. Vol. 2. p. 53. f P. 52, 

17 



130 THE ALPHABET 

Dr. Tatham has fallen, when he says "truth is an attru 
bute of mind." 

To make good his theory of truth anil evidence, the 
Professor attempts to establish a distinction, and a pa- 
rallel; a distinction between principles of reasoning* 
and "elements of reasoning," or "fundamental laws of 
belief;" and a parallel between facts, as first principles 
of philosophy, and definitions, as first principles of 
mathematical science; — a parallel also, between 
"fundamental laws of belief," and mathematical axioms. 
He observes, that "from such propositions as these, I 
"exist; the material world has an existence indepen- 
dent of my mind; &c. no inference can be deduced, 
"any more than from the intuitive truths prefixed to the 
"Elements of Euclid." — He observes also, that "Defini- 
tions hold, in mathematics, precisely the same place 
"that is held in natural philosophy by such general facts 
"as have now been referred to."* The general facts 
referred to are "the gravity and elasticity of the air."-\ 

It is astonishing that the Professor should have over- 
looked so obvious a distinction, as that between facts, 
and definitions. They agree, indeed, in being both 
principles of reasoning, but they are different kinds of 
principle ; and they are not distinguished from truths 
and axioms by this character, for these also are princi- 
ples of reasoning, as we shall see just now. The lo- 
gician must use different terms in defining facts, from 
those in which he would define definition ; and if the 
Professor had defined his terms, he had, without doubt, 
detected his own error. The character of a definition 
is, that it points out the genus of some (one) thing de- 
fined, and the specific difference by which that thing is 

*E1. Phil. p. 37. fPage 3& 



OF THOUGHT. 131 

distinguished, §"c. But the character of a fact is, that 
it affirms or denies some relation between some two 
things. The fact of the gravitation of the air does 
not resemble, either in a logical or philosophical point, 
the definition of a right angle or of a square ; nor can 
any defininition, either in mathematics or in philosophy, 
have a resemblance to that or to any other fact. That 
the air gravitates — is a fact ; it affirms a specific rela- 
tion — the relation of cause and effect, or of agent and 
action — between the substance of the air, and the phe- 
nomenon^ gravitation. But if we define gravitation, we 
say gravitation is a phenomenon; this is the genus — 
and that it is produced by material substance — this is 
the specific difference. In like manner, in mathematics, 
that all right angles are equal — is a fact; the proposi- 
tion affirms the relation of equality among all right an- 
gles. But when we define the figure, we point out the 
genus by saying it is an angle, and the species, or spe- 
cific difference, by saying it is a right angle, or an an- 
gle of ninety degrees. 

But the Professor's design was to establish the doc- 
trine, that truths are not principles of reasoning. 
Hence he tells us that, in mathematics, definitions are 
principles of reasoning, but that the axioms are not; 
that in philosophy, facts are principles of reasoning, but 
"truths, or laws of belief/' are not; and farther, that 
general facts hold the same place in philosophy, that de- 
finitions hold in mathematics ; and that truths hold no 
place in either science. 

We shall inquire by and by into the fact — what place 
is actually held in mathematics and philosophy, re- 
spectively, by definitions, and axioms, facts, and "laws 
of belief." And we trust it will appear, that in phi- 
losophy, truths, and general facts hold the same place 



132 THE ALPHABET 

in philosophy, that truths or axioms hold in mathema- 
tics. In the mean time we shall endeavor to shew that 
tht facts of philosophy are analogous, not to the defini- 
tions, but to the axioms of mathematics — in a word, that 
truths, and axioms, are general facts, both in mathe- 
matics and in philosophy ; and farther, that those pro- 
positions which the author terms "fundamental laws of 
belief," and which the author says, are not principles 
of reasoning, because they are neither facts nor defini- 
tions, are some of them really facts; and some of them 
express the universality of certain facts. 

One of the "laws of belief" enumerated by the author 
is, that "the material world has an existence indejpen- 
"dent of my mind. 7 ' This is a fact. A fact or truth 
affirms, or denies somewhat This one, or this "law 
"of belief" affirms existence of the material world, and 
denies its dependence on "my mind." That "1 am 
''tht same to-day that I was yesterday," is also a fact, 
it affirms the relation of sameness* or similarity* of that 
which J am to-day* to that which I was yesterday. 
This is a simple fact; the following "law of belief" is 
more complex; "The general laws of nature will con- 
"tinue to operate uniformly, as in time past." This 
proposition merely affirms universality of the "general 
"laws" of nature, or of certain facts observed in nature. 
That matter gravitates, is one of these facts; aad when 
a fact* or law of nature* is perceived to be universally 
true* and because that universality is established in a 
metaphysical investigation of things, the fact is termed a 
truth ; the Professor terms it a "law of belief." 

Mathematical axioms are, strictly, general facts, and 
are of the same nature with those just mentioned, only 
that they relate to different things. When it is said 
of two right angles* that they are equal, this is the 



OF THOUGHT. 133 

expression of an individual fact; that all right angles 
are equal, is a general, or universal fact ; and because 
of its universality, it is termed a truth, or axiom. — If in 
the way of experiment it is discovered, that A is equal 
to B, and that C is equal to B, and that, consequently, 
A and C are equal, this is the discovery of a fact ; but 
when in farther contemplating the subject, it is perceiv- 
ed to be necessarily and universally true, that things 
equal to the same thing are equal among themselves, — 
this is termed an axiom, or truth. 

So it appears that the "laws of belief" are essential- 
ly the same with general facts, and that general, or uni- 
versal facts, are metaphysical truths, and are analogous 
to mathematical axioms. We will now inquire into the 
fact, what place is actually held in mathematics and 
philosophy respectively, by definitions, and axioms, 
facts, and "laws of belief." It is certainly true, that, 
as the Professor observes, no inference can be deduced 
from a truth, or law of belief, nor from mathematical 
axioms, taken singly, or "abstracted from the data." 
But the same is true of facts, and the same is true of 
definitions, whether mathematical or metaphysical. 
From no one principle, either axiom, or definition, fact, 
or "law of belief," can any inductive inference be de- 
duced. In a process of inductive reasoning, either an 
axiom, or a general fact, or a definition — any general 
principle, may form the major proposition ; but we de- 
duce no inference without the minor also — either ex- 
pressed, or tacitly recognized. For example, matter 
gravitates; what inference can be drawn, inductively, 
from this general fact? None at all. But add the 
minor proposition, the moon is a material substance; 
and directly we come to the conclusion, thai the moon 
gravitates Or if we take for the major proposition, 



134 THE ALPHABET 

the definition — matter is the efficient cause of gravi- 
tation, no inductive inference follows from this; but 
add the minor, the moon gravitates, then it follows that 
the moon is a material substance. It is the same in 
mathematics. Definition. A straight line is the short- 
est that can be drawn between two points. "Abstract- 
ed from other data" this is barren of consequence 5 but 
add the individual fact, here is a line stretched from A 
to B, the shortest that can be drawn between the two 
points. It is then a straight line. The axioms like- 
wise form major propositions. Major. Two straight 
lines cannot inclose a space. Minor. Here are two 
lines inclosing a space. Inference. They cannot both 
be straight lines. Take now for major proposition the 
following "law of belief." "The laivs of nature will 
continue to operate uniformly, in future, as in time 
past." Minor. Here is a fountain of water which has 
ever flowed as it does now. Inference. It will con- 
tinue to flow, in future, as in times past. 

Thus it appears, that in a process of inductive reason- 
ing, any general principle, whether axiom, or definition, 
may form the major proposition, and an individual fact, 
the minor; though from no single principle, whether 
fact, or axiom, or definition, does any consequence fol- 
low, inductively. Truths, then, are principles of rea- 
soning as well as definitions ; and it has been seen too, 
that definitions are sound principles, or real guides in 
the path of science, only so far as they are true — or as 
they are in harmony with the real predicaments of 
things. Definition is the polar star, but truth is the sun 
of science. 

We trust it has also already been proved, or made 
appear, that truths are not perceived intuitively, or 
without evidence and the exercise of reason; but that 



OF THOUGHT. 135 

general principles, or universal truths, both in philoso- 
phy and in mathematics are unfolded in a metaphysical 
analysis of the nature of the subjects of which the truths 
are affirmed. 

Analysis and induction are apt to be confounded, the 
one with the other, in the attempts of logicians to de- 
scribe them, probably because that analysis is frequent- 
ly succeeded by induction, and induction ought to be 
preceded by analysis. We analyse a particular fact, 
with a view to discover its character, or, to induct it 
into some general principle; or we analyse a phenome- 
non, with a view to bring it under some definition, or to 
refer it to some class. Analysis implies experiment, — 
even in metaphysical subjects, it is impossible to analyse 
without adducing, or exhibiting to the mind a particular 
instance of the thing to be analysed, and of the decom- 
position, or separation of its component parts, and of its 
necessary relations. This is technically termed analy- 
sis, and abstraction ; while the bringing an individual 
subject under some definition, or referring a particular 
fact to some general fact, is termed induction. Thus 
when we analyse a particular fact, for instance, the 
perception of matter, we exhibit, or bring that particu- 
lar fact before the mind, in idea; we then abstract the 
phenomenon — simple perception, from its object, or ex- 
citing cause, that is, matter, and view the former by it- 
self, or in its own native character; this is analysis ; in 
viewing the phenomenon thus, we perceive that it is an 
operation— & thing which is produced, and passes away, 
this is induction, this single act of referring the particu- 
lar object to a class of objects, to operations, is that 
which is termed induction. — In this process we establish 
the definition, or the general character of the phenome- 
non perception ; we discover that it belongs to the pre- 



1S6 THE ALPHABET 

dicament of operations. Again, in farther analysing 
this particular phenomenon, perception, with a view to 
discover its source, and its necessary relations, we ab- 
stract its generical character, as an operation, from its 
species, or particular character, as perception. In con- 
templating the first, its character as an operation, it will 
be perceived, that it has no stability in itself, that as 
soon as it exists, it passes away, and is succeeded by 
another of the same, and that by another, continually ; 
that it must therefore relate to some invisible substantial 
being which produces it,—it is evidently the product of 
some cause which is able to sustain the operation conti- 
nually. Thus we discover the universal truth, that 
every phenomenon requires a cause able to produce it, 
or an efficient cause. By pursuing the analysis of the 
phenomenon perception, several other general princi- 
ples would disclose themselves, but this will suffice for 
the present. Although it is performed mentally, this 
process is properly experimental; but it is certain that 
when experiment is addressed to the senses, it is most 
efficacious in throwing light on a subject. But this is 
simply because the external organs of sense are more 
exercised than the internal organs, or faculties of the 
mind, or rather, that the mind is more exercised on sen- 
sible, than on metaphysical subjects. It is, perhaps, 
for this reason, that the first principles of mathematical 
science, which relate to sensible objects, have long ago 
been fixer! beyond dispute, while those of metaphysics 
still wander as a glimmering light in a dark and vast 
expanse. 

It is by means of analysis, or by experiment on lines, 
angles, &c. that the elementary principles, or first truths 
of mathematics are originally discovered. In compar- 
ing two right angles, it is discovered that they are equal. 



OF THOUGHT. 1S7 

Tiiis is sl fact discovered by experinieut. But in farther 
contemplating these angles, and comparing them with 
others, we discover that no one right angle can be 
greater, or less, than any other right angle; in other 
words, that all right angles are equal. This process 
involves and fixes the definition of a right angle, at the 
same time that it unfolds the axiom; for unless the 
term right angle have a definite signification, the uni- 
versality of the fact does not appear. The definition, 
and the axiom are established at the same time, in the 
analysis of the simple fact, that two right angles are 
equal. The simple fact ascertained by observation is 
the ground, or that which leads to the discovery of the 
definition ; and the definition, in its turn, is the ground 
of the axiom, or of the universality of the fact. The 
axiom — things equal to the same thing are equal to one 
another — is discovered and proved in the same way. In 
experiment it is observed, that A is equal to B, and that 
C is equal to B, and that A and C are also equal. This 
is a simple fact. But in farther considering the sub- 
ject, it is discovered, that whatever is equal to B, must 
be equal to A, and to C, and that it cannot be other- 
wise. Hence the axiom, things equal to the same thing, 
are equal to one another. 

It appears to be the general belief that these axioms 
are perceived intuitively as soon as they are announced, 
and without experiment or inquiry. But this is not the 
fact, except where we have previously made the experi- 
ment, or been conversant about lines and angles, or 
about the things to which the axioms relate. It is im- 
possible for any one to comprehend the axiom, unless 
he have a pretty clear conception of the things to which 
it relates, or of which it is affirmed. These indeed, are 
18 



138 THE ALPHABET 

very simple processes, but they form the infant science, 
Hercules in his cradle. 



We have now to consider the physical character, or 
sensible form of truth, if the expression is allowable, or 
the manner in which truth influences other substances, 
and in which it presents itself to the external organs of 
sense. We have seen that harmony is the characteris- 
tic of truth, in the metaphysical world ; or that it is the 
form in which truth presents itself to the mind. But har- 
mony exists in the physical or external world also, aud 
is perceived by the senses. But like causes produce 
like effects. Therefore truth is the efficient cause of 
harmony, in the physical, as well as in the metaphysical 
world. Wherever this phenomenon is perceived to ex- 
ist, and whatever are the avenues through which it ex- 
hibits itself to the mind, it is always the product of the 
same invisible efficient cause or substance. 

Harmony is the effect and evidence of truth in the 
physical, as well as in the moral and metaphysical 
worlds. But this simple phenomenon is modified in a 
variety of ways, by being associated with other pheno- 
mena, from which circumstance it takes a variety of 
names, as music, beauty, order, sweetness, <Sfc. It has 
already been suggested, in treating of material substance, 
that truth addresses itself to the external organs of 
sense in the phenomenon harmony, and that, beside 
harmony of sound, which is addressed to the ear, beauty 
is harmony addressed to the eye, and sweetness is the 
same phenomenon addressed to the organs of tasting 
and smelling. Harmony never exhibits itself to the 
senses but in connexion with other phenomena, the ope- 
rations of causes different from truth. There can be no 



OF THOUGHT. 139 

music, without sound ; no beauty, without bodily form; 
no sweetness without something solid, liquid, or airi- 
forra. But the music, the beauty, and the sweetness 
are phenomena quite distinct from the sound, the solidi- 
ty, or the bodily form. But music it may be said, or 
harmony of sound, requires mind for its production ; 
that though it may be admitted that music is necessarily 
produced according to certain rules, or truths, although 
mind, to produce harmony, must possess truth, yet the 
truth is not able of itself to produce this phenomenon, 
harmony of sound, or is not the efficient cause of it. 

It is very certain that truth is not the efficient cause 
of harmony of sound, or of the complex phenomenon 
called music; but truth is the efficient and sole cause of 
simple harmony. Harmony of sound is a complex phe- 
nomenon ; the efficient cause of sound, is power ; but 
power can no more produce harmony, than truth can 
produce sound. Harmony of sound requires mind for. 
its production, but simple harmony exists independently 
of mind, though it is not, in its simple state, perceived 
by the senses. Truth is always consistent, or in har- 
mony with itself. The harmony of truth with truth, 
depends on nothing but truth itself. Though the direc- 
tion of mind is required to combine harmony with sound^ 
simple harmony is the offspring of simple truth. 

When harmony is perceived by the organ of hearing, 
it is necessarily combined with sound ; but harmony is 
also perceived by the organ of taste, and then it is com- 
bined with the phenomena of bodies, in the complex 
form of sweetness. Can this be so? Can we taste 
truth,' or smell it? Why not? If the substance of har* 
mony cannot be tasted, what substance, or what efficient 
cause can? Cm power be tasted, or matter? Power is 
the efficient cause of a phenomenon which, when pro- 



140 THE ALPHABET 

duccd on the organ of taste, excites the sensation of 
acidity ; another phenomenon produced on the organ of 
taste excites the sensation of sweetness ; and this too 
must have its efficient cause. But it is hard to conceive 
this to be the same thing that metaphysicians call truth. 
Why ? Have we uot truth in the productions of human 
art? Is not truth essential to a fine picture, or a fine 
piece of music? and are the productions of the divine 
artist less true, and less divine than those of the human 
artist? Human art produces music, — divine art produces 
sweetness, or that combination of substance, the opera- 
tion of which is termed sweetness. Undoubtedly there 
is some mystery in these things ; we can understand but 
a part of the ways of the great architect who builds, and 
adorns, and amply stores this world of ours. But we 
are permitted to see, and all the world of mankind do 
perceive, the several distinct elementary efficient causes 
of the phenomena which present themselves to the or- 
gans of sense. Sweetness is doubtless the product of a 
combination of the efficient cause of harmony, with an- 
other substance as a vehicle. The divine artist certainly 
forms these combinations in nature with the design of 
exciting the pleasing sensation of sweetness; but is this 
more incredible than that the human artist should create 
harmony of sound. The divine mind does not work 
without rule, or without regard to truth: He forms those 
combinations according to the eternal rules of harmony. 
**The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, 
"before his works of old." 

We have already hazarded the opinion, that material 
substance, or hydro gene is the efficient cause of contrac- 
tion, and that contraction is the object and exciting cause 
of the sensation, called the sensation of acidity ; also, 
that spiritual substance is the same with caloric, and is 



OF THOUGHT. J4t 

the basis of the phenomenon called pungency, or 
warmth, when addressed to the organ of taste. Nei- 
ther of these simple substances then is the basis of 
sweetness. We are not sufficiently versed in chemistry 
to be able to discuss this subject with perfect success, or 
to identify with certainty the basis of sweetness in the 
laboratory, but may hazard an expression of the belief 
that the base of the alkalies is the basis of sweetness.—*- 
The alkalies are sweet to the taste ; they are the puri- 
iiers of the external world, diluted with water they 
take away the foulness of the skin and the cloathing ; 
they oppose decomposition, or putrefaction in animal 
matter ; they oppose the acetous fermentation in liquids ; 
and they neutralize the acids, forming with them a 
variety of chrystaline compounds. The base of the 
alkalies is probably the cause of that regular harmoni- 
ous disposition of particles, called chrystalization. Me- 
tals and minerals, beside the chrystaline form of their 
particles, exhibit other evidence that they contain this 
base. They have the property of neutralizing the 
acids, and of forming compound salts, having a general 
resemblance to those formed by the alkalies with the 
acids. The same effect requires the same cause, the 
metals, and all substances forming salts with acids 
must contain the base of the alkalies, or the basis of 
sweetness. 

If the alkalies oppose decomposition in animal mat- 
ter, they are doubtless the cause of the strong resistance 
to decomposition in some other bodies. The precious 
stones and metals will owe the stability of their exist- 
ing forms, and consequently their value, to this same 
principle, the base of the alkalies. The material sub- 
stance, or gravitating principle is one, it is the same in 
all the metals, and if each metal were a simple sub. 



Ht THE ALPHABET 

stance, there could be no variety, there could then be 
but one metal. But there are a variety of phenomena 
attending them, some of which necessarily depend on 
other substances than simple matter. Such are their 
brilliancy, their various colors, their different degrees 
of malleability, solubility, and fusibility. — Their attrac- 
tion for the acids, and for caloric, while they are not 
affected by the alkalies, is presumptive evidence that 
they already possess the alkaline base. 

We will hazard a few more remarks with a view to 
trace this substance through some other of its forms, or 
combinations. There is reason to believe, that the 
simple principle called nitrogene is the same with the 
base of the alkalies. The facts on which this conjec- 
ture is founded are these : nitrogene combined with 
hydrogene forms ammonia, one of the alkalies ; but 
hydrogene has no alkaline properties, therefore the base 
of this alkali, or that on which its alkalescence de- 
pends, is the nitrogene. Another fact which strength- 
ens this conjecture is, that nitrate of potash, which is 
compounded of an alkali, with nitrogene and oxygene, 
is among the most powerful antiseptics known. If 
nitrogene is the base of alkalies, then both the consti- 
tuents of nitrate of potash contain this base. 

The base of the alkalies, or the basis of sweetness, is 
of course an immaterial substance, or a principle essen- 
tially different from that of gravitation and repulsion, its 
distinguishing qualities are not gravity and solidity. 
Hence it is obvious that this substance cannot be mea- 
sured by its weight, but that, like caloric, it will require 
a peculiar instrument for ascertaining its comparative 
quantities. It is obvious, too, that whenever it appears, 
in a solid form, it is necessarily combined with matter, 
or hydrogene. And it farther appears from the caustL, 



OF THOUGHT. 143 

city of the alkalies, that they contain oxygene, which 
substance would seem to be a peculiar compound of 
hydro gene and caloric, and perhaps it is one of the 
primitive creations, or combinations, which never is de- 
composed. It is to all these various circumstances, and 
perhaps some others, that the alkalies owe their variety 
of forms. 

If these conjectures are well founded, it is highly 
probable that the nitrogene as well as the oxygene gas 
of the atmosphere, is decomposed in breathing, and may 
be necessary to animal life, notwithstanding that, alone, 
it is deleterious. This has been already conjectured by 
some chemists. As the oxygene supplies the principle 
of life, the nitrogene will tend to maintain health ; it 
will regulate the action of the principle of life ; it will 
oppose putrescence in the blood, and in the system ge- 
nerally. In all this, the basis of sweetness in the phy- 
sical world, is analogous to the basis of harmony, or to 
truth in the moral and metaphysical worlds ; or to 
speak more correctly, the basis of sweetness belongs to 
the metaphysical world as really as truth; they are 
both invisible to the senses, and to the mind also, and 
are perceived only in, or through their phenomena. — 
And they are alike in their effects; sweet substances 
are not liable to putrescence, or decomposition ; and 
truth is imperishable, and transmits to future ages what- 
ever is connected with it. Divine truth is the tree of 
life, "its leaves are for the healing of the nations/' — 
"Whosoever heareth my words, and believest them, 
"shall never die." This was said by him who is truth 
itself. 

Truth, it has been said, exists only when perceived. 
The same doctrine has been held respecting the pheno- 
mena perceived by the senses; it reduces all the pheno- 



114 THE ALPHABET 

mena of nature to sensations. Sweetness, say these 
philosophers, is a sensation, and can exist no where but 
in the mind. This is confounding the sensation, with 
the object of the sensation. A certain philosopher has 
told us, that the heat which burns the finger, is not in 
the fire, but in the finger. He reasons thus, "The pain 
"produced by holding the finger in the fire, is not in the 
"fire, for pain is a sensation, and sensation exists no 
"where but in the mind. But heat also is a sensation, 
"and therefore is not in the fire, but in the mind." But, 
with deference, heat is not a sensation : heat is the ob- 
ject and exciting cause of a sensation. The sensation 
is not heat, but the perception of the heat. Pain is a 
general term for a class of sensations ; the sensation of 
heat is a particular sensation, and the heat exists inde- 
pendently of the sensation, or of being perceived. — Nei- 
ther is sweetness a sensation, but it is the object of a 
sensation. Sweetness is a phenomenon, an operation 
perceived by the organ of sense. The sensation of 
sweetness, is the perception of sweetness. Every one 
knows what perception is, and that perception is not 
sweetness, nor sweetness, perception. Does truth exist 
when it is perceived? then it must exist always, and 
every where, independently of being perceived; for at 
what time, or in what place does it cease to be a truth, 
that two and two are equal to four. 



CHAPTER T. 

OF THE ESSENCE OF GOD. 

We approach this subject with profound awe. » 

O thou who touched Isaiah's lips with a live coal 
from off thy altar, guide my pen. — Sooner, "let my 
"right hand forget its cunning," than it give utterance 
to error, or to an impious thought. 

Perhaps the title of this chapter may displease or 
alarm the sensitive christian, if he has not entered fully 
into the spirit of what has gone before; if he has, his 
inferences respecting the constitution of the divine Es- 
sence will accord with what follows. But some will 
exclaim, "Who can by searching find out God : who 
"can find out the Almighty unto perfection ? His way is 
"in the deep, — His path in the deep waters, — His judg- 
ments are a mighty deep, — His counsels are unsearch- 
able." — We bow a sincere and solemn assent. — But 
although these are solemn truths, they are not intended 
to preclude inquiry respecting the nature, or essence of 
God; on the contrary, the holy scriptures themselves 
make it an imperious duty to know God. "For this is 
"life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus 
"Christ whom thou hast sent." There are the most 
fearful denunciations against those who know not God. 
It appears then, that in one respect we cannot "find out 
"the Almighty unto perfection ;" and that in another we 
can, and do know the "living and true God.*' 
19 



146 THE ALPHABET 

The inquiry then is, in what respect is it that wc can- 
not find out the Almighty; and in what sense is it that 
the knowledge of God can be acquired? In pursuing 
this inquiry we shall take the holy scriptures for our 
guide ; for though it is through the senses and the facul- 
ty of reason that we discover originally the simple ele- 
ments of all things, it is to revelation we owe the know- 
ledge of the constitution of the Creator of all things. 
And we trust it will appear, or that it has already ap- 
peared, that Power, Spirit, and Truth constitute the 
Essence of God. 

We desire to have it clearly understood, that we do 
not pretend to any philosophical discovery, or to know 
any thing respecting the constitution of the divine Es- 
sence, more than is revealed in sacred writ. All that 
is intended here, is to point out ihefact, that the know- 
ledge actually possessetl, or derived from revelation, in- 
cludes a knowledge of the Essence, or Substance of the 
Divine Being. 

In what respect then is it that we cannot "find out the 
"Almighty ?" — The things relating to God which we 
cannot find out or comprehend, are His "thoughts" — 
His "ways" — His "judgments" — His counsels" — His 
"path." — "As the heavens are high above the earth, so 
"are my thoughts above your thoughts, and my ways 
"above your ways." "His path is in the deep waters." 
"His counsels are not known." "His judgments are a 
"mighty deep." Neither can we comprehend the ex- 
tent, or the immensity of the being and operations of 
God, nor the infinity of His duration. "Where wast 
"thou when I laid the foundations of the earth." "Hast 
"thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if 
"thou knowest it all." "Where is the way where 



OF THOUGHT. 147 

"light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the 
place thereof?*'* 

But in what respect is it that God can be, and is, 
known to the human mind? What is it to know God? 
Is it to know that infinite Power, Intelligence, and 
Truth belong to Him, but without daring to know the 
meaning of the terms, without presuming to inquire 
what is the precise character, or predicament of these 
things, without inquiring, whether Power and Truth, 
are constituents of His Essence, or are only attributes, 
and either may, or may not be exercised in conjunction 
with Spirit ? Is it to acquiesce in the metaphysical 
dogmas of the schools, as to what may be affirmed of 
the constitution of the divine Essence, without inquiring 
whether, or not, those dogmas are in accordance with 
revelation and with reason? It is in the exercise of 
reason that we discover the existence and the predica- 
ment of the elementary substances, power, spirit, and 
truth ; but it is certainly not from reason, nor from phi- 
losophy, but from the sacred scriptures that we derive 
the knowledge of the constitution of the divine Es- 
sence. 

Some things relating to God, some of His thoughts, 
ways, $fc. are not revealed, and if they were, probably 
we could not comprehend them. His thoughts are too 
high, and His counsels too deep, to be reached by our 
limited capacities. — Some things are revealed — His in- 
finity, and immensity — but we are unable to compre- 
hend them. But some things are revealed which we 
can and do comprehend. The constitution of the di- 
vine Being or Essence is revealed, and though we can- 
not comprehend the infinity or immensity of the con- 



Mob. 



148 THE ALPHABET 

stituents of that Essence, we can and do comprehend 
their nature. 

It is revealed in sacred writ, that Power, Spirit, and 
Truth belong essentially to God ; but it has been de- 
monstrated that Power, Spirit, and Truth are sub- 
stances, or essences; therefore these elementary es- 
sences constitute, or enter into the constitution of the 
divine Essence. But human reason is adequate to the 
comprehension of the nature of these simple essences. 
Though we do not comprehend the infinity or immen- 
sity of power, we do know very well the nature of 
power, or the essence of power. It is the essence of 
power to contract and repel. The efficient cause of 
contraction and repulsion is the essence of power. And 
though we cannot comprehend the eternity of the divine 
Spirit, nor how that Spirit fills all space, yet it is 
known that the power to perceive is the essence of 
Spirit. And we do know or clearly conceive of the 
nature, or essence of Truth ; though we do not, nor 
shall we ever arrive at the knowledge of all truth. 

To know God, is to know His nature ; it is to know 
the dispositions, or tendencies of His Mind, or Being ; 
it is to know what are the phenomena, or the necessary 
operations of His Mind or Being, if we may so speak. 
It is to know that He does what he pleases "in the ar- 
"mies of heaven, and amongst the inhabitants of the 
"earth ;" that He knows all things, past, present, and 
to come ; that He abhors iniquity ; that He loves truth 
and uprightness ; that He compassionates the unhappy 5 
and that He despises the proud. These are the opera- 
tions, or the phenomena of the divine Mind, — and when 
the phenomena of any being are known, the nature, the 
essence of that being is known. If God does what He 
will, in the armies of heaven,-— He must possess 



OF THOUGHT. 149 

almighty power', if He know all things, Repossesses 
spirit, or intelligence ; if he love truth, then truth must 
be a part of Himself, or a constituent of His Essence. 
If every action of divine power, is directed by spirit, 
or intelligence, and governed by truth, then Power, 
Spirit, and Truth constitute the divine Essence. — But 
if, as it seems to be believed, Spirit were the only sub- 
stance, or essence in the divine Being, and power, and 
truth were attributes, then it would seem that the 
operation of Spirit would be the only necessary opera- 
tion of the divine Being, that Spirit may exercise power 
at pleasure, and that truth may, or may not, influence 
the operation. This direful consequence is implied in 
the principle, that God is a simple Essence. Tf Spirit 
were the only essence of the divine Being, He would 
not then be essentially or necessarily holy and true. 

Whenever the divine Essence is spoken of, that 
which is meant is either the Power, the Spirit, or the 
Truth of God, or all these united ; or there is no mean- 
ing, nor specific idea annexed to the terms. The 
essence of any being or thing, is that which makes that 
being or thing to be what it is. It may be affirmed 
without fear of contradiction, that Power, Spirit, and 
Truth, make the Supreme God to be what He is. — 
We speak with reverence. In fact, these substances, 
and their operations constitute all that is known of 
God. If there is any other Essence of Deity, if there 
is any substratum of Power, Spirit, and Truth, that 
substratum must be the efficient cause of these things, 
for this is the idea of a substratum. But is it actually 
known that there is an efficient cause of Power, Spirit, 
and Truth ? Is any one of these things of such a char* 
acter as to require a cause, or to indicate that a cause is 
necessary to its existence. No, certainly. Who ever 



150 THE ALPHABET 

thought of a cause of the Spirit of God, or a cause of 
Truth, or a cause of Almighty Power ? 

But it i3 often asserted that the human mind is inca- 
pable of comprehending the nature of the divine Es- 
sence, or of discovering," or understanding what is the 
divine Essence. This must, or should, be predicated 
on some principle already known. For one who knows 
nothing, or professes to know nothing of a matter, to 
pretend to point out what can, or what cannot be known 
of that matter, is preposterous. If it has actually been 
ascertained that human reason is inadequate to compre- 
hend the nature of the divine Essence, that discovery 
must have been made by a comparison of the thing to 
be comprehended, with the human faculty for compre- 
hending, — of human reason, with the divine Essence. 
But this would imply a previous knowledge of the di- 
vine Essence, the very knowledge that is disclaimed, 
and which, it is asserted, cannot be acquired. So that 
the assumption — human reason cannot comprehend the 
nature of the divine Essence, is irrational. 

Before it can be rationally affirmed of any being, that 
he is incapable of kuowing what is the divine Essence, 
we should be acquainted, not only with the capacity of 
that being, but also with the nature of the divine Es- 
sence. We might with propriety pass a judgment of 
this kind on some mind inferior to our own. We may 
have ascertained, that a horse is incapable of compre- 
hending a syllogism. But if a horse, without exploring 
the ground and making the experiment, should pro- 
nounce respecting himself and his species, that none of 
them are able, or ever will be able to get within a cer- 
tain inclosure, should we not pronounce this judgment 
of the horse irrational. And it would certainly be in- 
consistent with the enterprizing character of the horse. 



OF THOUGHT. 151 

Just such a judgment is it, when pronounced by man, 
upon man, that he is incapable of ascertaining the na- 
ture of any specified object. He is irrational in at- 
tempting to make a comparison between any object, and 
the capacity of man, unless he first ascertain the nature 
of that object. 

It is not genuine philosophy that pretends to antici- 
pate the possible limit of her own career, or to deter- 
mine beforehand what can or cannot be known. If an 
angel from heaven should stoop down and tell us, that 
we are incapable of comprehending the meaning of the 
terms which designate the divine Essence, — or if reve- 
lation told us so, then indeed it would become us to re- 
frain from inquiry. But we ought then, modestly to 
lay aside the term divine Essence, a term that could 
signify nothing to us. And we should feel ourselves 
sink below the scale of being in which we had believed 
ourselves placed ; we should feel that we cannot really 
be made in the image of God, since, if that were so, 
the nature of man — undepraved, would be similar to 
the nature of God, and so far as we understand our 
own nature, or the constituents of our being, we should 
understand that of our Creator. 

Power, Spirit, and Truth, in man, are, though finite, 
the same in nature, or in essence with Power, Spirit, 
and Truth in Him who is infinite in all His perfections. 
The infinity and immensity of the divine Being are not 
objects of philosophy, they are no part of that which is 
properly called the nature of the divine Essence. They 
are the mathematical properties of the divine Essence ; 
and there can be no comparison between them and the 
mathematical properties of a finite being. But we are 
authorized by the Word of God to say, that the nature 



152 THE ALPHABET 

of finite man, is the same with the nature of that 
which is infinite. 

Power, Spirit, and Truth are perceived by reason 
to be self-existent efficient causes, and this is the very 
idea of Deity. These efficiencies, unconnected, are 
reason's gods. We cannot demonstrate, on philoso- 
phical principles, that these three are united in One 
Supreme. The knowlege of this fact we owe entirely 
to revelation. But if Power, Spirit and Truth are 
essences, or efficient causes, and if these three consti- 
tute the Being of God, then the Hebrew word, Elohim, 
is intelligible ; there are then, in one sense, three gods ; 
or there are three independent efficiencies, infinite and 
eternal, in the One Omnipotent, Omniscient, and in- 
finitely Holy God. 



It would seem a necessary appendage to the fore- 
going, to inquire what, or who is he, who is called 
the Son of God. 

It appears to be assumed as a first principle in the 
philosophy of this subject, that the relations of "Father" 
and "Son" in the divine Essence is a deep mystery, 
and that a knowlege of the distinctive character of the 
"Son" is unattainable in the present state of things. 

It is the boldest presumption to attempt to be wise 
above what is written, or to substitute our own un- 
founded imaginations, for the true philosophy of the 
gospel. At the same time it is a reprehensible negli- 
gence, to pass over that which is expressly revealed, 
without an attempt to comprehend it, where there is no 
accompanying clause which forbids too bold a scrutiny. 
" With out controversy, great is the mystery of godli- 
ness — God manifested in the flesh," &c. But with 



OF THOUGHT. 153 

humility we would venture to observe, that the sacred 
scriptures evidently assume, that human reason is ade- 
quate to comprehend many of the facts which they re- 
cord, and this one in particular, that Jesus is the Son 
of God. This fact is in part what St. Paul alludes to 
when he speaks of "the mystery which was kept se- 
cret since the world began, but now is made mani- 
fest."* 

The Jews were addressed on this subject by our 
Saviour, as though there were no question but that 
they perfectly understood the terms, "Father" and 
"Son ;" and though they were enemies to his person 
and character, and though they charged him with blas- 
phemy when he spoke of God as being his Father, 
they never caviled at his assertions as incomprehensi- 
ble. If there had appeared to them any mystery in 
the assertion, that he was the Son of God, or any thing 
which they could not reconcile to what they had learned 
from the law and the testimony concerning the nature 
and perfections of God, they had doubtless turned it to 
account in their opposition. But the terms "Father" 
and "Son" are figures which were familiar to the 
Jews, and they do not seem to have ever conceived the 
thought of raising an objection to the fact, from the 
language in which it was expressed. While our Sa- 
viour was on earth, he called on the Jews and all 
others to believe that he was the Son of God ; and it 
was demanded of them to believe, not merely because 
he testified the fact, but because of the works which he 
did — because his character and manners were rational 
evidence of his origin, or his parentage. "If ye be- 
"lieve not me, believe the works." They were bound 

* Romans xvi. 25. 

20 



154 THE ALPHABET 

in duty and in reason to infer from his works, that he 
was the Son of God; and it was their condemnation 
that they did not believe his works. Bat they could 
not have been condemned for not drawing this infer- 
ence, if <hey had not been capable of comprehending 
the import of it. Those who were not disaffected, did 
in fact deduce this very inference. — "Rabbi, thou art 
"the Son of God." We are called on still to believe 
the same thing, on the same ground; and all genuine 
Christian faith includes, necessarily, some apprehen- 
sion of the nature of the fact, that Jesus is the Son of 
God. 

From the general import of the metaphorical terms 
father and son, and from all that is declared in sacred 
writ respecting the "Father" and the "Son," it would 
appear, that the relation of Father and Son in the di- 
vine* Essence, is the relation of Cause and Effect, — or 
that the "Son" is the eternal Operation, of the eternal 
Cause or "Father." 

We shall inquire first what is the general signifi- 
cation of the terms father and son. And if we should 
adduce ever so many instances, it would be found, that 
in every case, the relation of father and son, or of parent 
and child, is the relation of cause and effect, or of agent 
and operation. The following are a few of the innu- 
merable instances which might be adduced. God is 
called the Father of Spirits, because he is the Cause 
of the individual existence of spirits, or minds. He is 
called the Father of mercies, because mercy is a con- 
stant and necessary operation of his Mind. Satan is 
called the father of lies, because he was the first who 
framed a lie, and is the prime instigator of all lies. 
The terms have the same signification in the following 
metaphors -.—fathers of the church, daughters of Zion, 



OF THOUGHT. 155 

born of the Spirit, sons of thunder, sons of Belial, — 
wisdom is justified of her children. 

God is said to be the Father of all things, that is, 
the first Cause of all things. By a similar figure the 
operation of the first cause is called the Son. — He is 
called also the image, and the manifestation of the 
Father, the express image of His person. Now the 
image of any cause can be nothing else than the effect 
or operation of that cause. There is no other way in 
which a cause can present its image, or iu which it can. 
manifest itself, than either in its action, its operation, or 
in its more remote effect, a fixed product of that opera- 
tion. Power, Spirit, and Truth constitute the "Fa- 
rther," or first Cause; and the operation of these three 
efficient causes united in One Supreme, constitute the 
"Son." The Son is said to be co-eternal with the 
'(Father;" so is the operation of the first cause co- eter- 
nal with that cause. The eternal "Son," is the eternal 
operation of the Father, or first cause, or causes — Elo- 
Mm, 

The operation of any being, or of any cause, is the 
offspring, and the image of that being or cause. The 
operation of Power, Spirit, and Truth combined in 
One unchangeable Being, is the Son or Offspring of 
that Being, in the same sense that the operation of a 
man's mind is the offspring of his mind. And the 
"Son" is the image, or character of the "Father" in 
the same sense that the thoughts, and feelings, and ac- 
tions of a man, form the image or character of the man. 
The "Son" is the operation, or more strictly speaking, 
he is perhaps the product of the operation, a consolidat- 
ed living record of the thoughts, and actions, and affec^ 
tions — if we may say so, of the "Father;" as the me- 
mory and mind of a man is made up of a consolidated 



156 THE ALPHABET 

living record of his past thoughts, feelings, and actions. 
We hope to be indulged while we endeavor farther to 
illustrate this position. 

In the physiology of the human constitution we learn, 
that the animal body is sustained and has its original 
growth from the action, or the various operations of the 
organs which constitute the system of animal life. The 
body is thus formed, — and the mind, or the brain and 
nervous system, or the external and internal organs 
of sense and perception are formed, or have their 
growth and maturity from the operations — the thoughts, 
feelings, and actions, which take place in this system, 
and which are excited in it by the stimulus of the im- 
pressions of external objects upon the organs of sense. 
The late discoveries of phrenologists tend to con- 
firm this theory, and to prove that the brain and nerv- 
ous system form the mind with all its habits and asso- 
ciations. 

The brain and nerves, or the' mind, is the subject 
of our ideas and sensations, and every idea, being a 
motion, or vibration, or configuration in the brain, con- 
solidates a portion of the nervous fluid in which it 
takes place, and leaves in that consolidated part, a 
trace of the idea, or mode of action which gave it birth ; 
or to be more explicit, the idea, or action of the brain 
consolidates, or produces a minute nervous fibre, with a 
form exhibiting the idea, or mode of action which gave 
it form or existence, and with a tendency to repeat that 
mode of action whenever it is stimulated. Every repe- 
tition of the idea will increase the bulk and consis- 
tency of the nervous fibre; in the same way that the 
actions of the muscular system increase the bulk and 
strength of the muscles. This consolidation of ideas, 
in time forms the brain or mind, every part of which 



OF THOUGHT. 157 

retains a facility and tendency to repeat the ideas or 
modes of action by which it was formed. This facility 
and tendency to repeat former ideas, is that which is 
called memory, and habit of thinking, or association of 
ideas. 

Thus the body is formed by the actions or operations, 
and the consolidations of the animal fluids ; it will of 
consequence exhibit in itself, iu its figure and constitu- 
tion, the nature or manner of the action of those fluids, 
or of the operations by, and in which it was formed. 
This is a natural consequence ; and it is proved by 
facts, by the diseases and deformities produced in the 
animal frame by morbid action, or by a wrong direction 
of the fluids. — Just so the mind, or brain, having been 
formed or consolidated by the thoughts, affections, and 
actions which have taken place in the nervous fluid, it 
will exhibit in its form and character, a tablet, or record 
of those thoughts, and affections, and of its own reac- 
tion upon the ideas excited within it. 

The brain then, or the mind, is a living record of 
our former ideas and sensations ; it will exhibit, in its 
form and habits, that which is otherwise called our ha- 
bits of thinking, and our prevailing sentiments and pro- 
pensities. The mind, as well as the body, is formed 
of power and spirit, or matter and spirit ; and we may 
very reasonably, indeed we are bound in reason to ad- 
mit the evidence of this analogy between the body and 
mind, iu reasoning of the constitution or formation of 
the latter. The brain then, or mind with all its ac- 
quirements, is the offspring of the operations of the 
united substances of which it was originally formed ; 
and it is evolved in those operations, or in the reaction 
of these substances upon the ideas, or the stimuli pre- 
sented to it through the organs of sense — as a plant is 



158 THE ALPHABET 

evolved in the reaction of the gerin upon the nourish- 
ment it receives. 

And would it not be a most rational hypothesis, that 
there exists a record, a living record of all the actions 
of the divine Mind, of all the operations of His Power, 
Spirit^ and Truth? Is it not a necessary conclusion 
from the existence of such a Being as is the true God, 
that His operations from all eternity are recorded, or 
consolidated somewhere, and that this record will ex- 
hibit the character, the express image of the operations, 
and also of the agent, the divine Mind. 
* Every star and planet God has formed, is a record, 
the operation of His power, and every rational being is 
an exhibition of His wisdom and goodness, as well as 
of His power. These are called the "sons of God ;" 
but these are not the "Only Son," or the "express 
image." — Those creatures are formed and left to the 
natural exercise of their own powers and tendencies, 
only under the continual superintendence, and the occa- 
sional controul of the Creator. As these creatures are 
distinct from the God who made them, so their opera- 
tions are their own, or distinct from His operations. 
But in the "Son," every action, thought, and feeling — 
every operation is the very Operation of the "Father." 
It is sometimes the operation, and sometimes it is the 
living record of the operation, that is signified or allud- 
ed to in the term Son. This is a fact attested by the 
apostles. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt 
"among us." — "That which was from the beginning, 
"which we have heard, which we have seen with our 
"eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have 
"handled of the Word of life." That part of speech 
which is called the verb, literally, the word, represents, 
or is the sign of, operation; but the "Word" spoken 



OF THOUGHT. 159 

of by the apostle, is the operation itself. This at least 
appears to be the most easy and natural interpretation 
of the apostle's language ; and we are not aware of any 
serious objection to it. Every general term has some 
general signification, or there is something common to 
all the things represented by that term. But the gene- 
ral signification of the term word is well known. 
Words are signs, the signs of things. The words of 
a language are the artificial signs of both substances 
and their operations ; but phenomena, or visible opera- 
tions, are the natural signs of invisible substances, or 
efficient causes. Operations then come properly under 
the denomination of words, or they belong to the class 
of objects called words. In this sense, motion is the 
word, or the language of power, or it is that by which 
power makes itself known ; and perception is the word 
or the language of spirit, or that by which spirit is made 
known. 

In the Gospel by John it is said : "In the beginning 
"was the Word, and the Word was with God." — The 
Word which was in the beginning, with God, was the 
operation of God, for it is farther said, "By Him," the 
Word, "were all things made that were made, and 
"without Him was not any thing made." It is a neces- 
sary truth, that by the operation of God, or of the First 
Cause, all things were made that were made, and that 
without that operation there was not any thing made. 
It is impossible to conceive that any thing more, or less, 
than the operation of God, or of infinite Power, Spirit, 
and Truth, could have been employed in the creation of 
the world. But St. John says, All things were made 
by the Word. Hence, the Word, and the operation, 
are the same. 



160 THE ALPHABET 

It is agreed on all bands that the "Word" is the 
same with the "Son." And it is also a self-evident 
truth, that nothing less than the "Word," or the ope- 
ration, of infinite Power, Wisdom, and Truth, is re- 
quired, to redeem mankind and to defend the redeemed 
from all their enemies, moral and physical. 

We are informed in the sacred oracles that Jesus 
Christ is the "Son of God." It is certainly intended 
that we should comprehend the meaning of this affirma- 
tion. The fact affirmed is an object of Christian faith ; 
but how could the Christian believe and confide in that 
which he did not comprehend. The apostle John says, 
"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, 
"God dwelleth in him, and he in God." Now to con- 
fess this without annexing any definite signification, or 
idea, to the words, and to make the confession, at the 
same time, a criterion of the genuineness of our own 
or another's faith, and of our being in God, would be 
absurd. It is necessary that we conceive, or compre- 
hend what we confess, otherwise the confession is not 
the effect, and evidence, of our being enlightened from 
above, or of our being "in God." 

There is a native love of mystery in the human 
mind, which is gratified by seeing things darkly, or 
through a mist. Truth is a natural enemy to this 
propensity, and when she comes to -interrupt its gra- 
tification, she is apt to be treated as an intruder. The 
moon is much less useful or necessary to man, than 
the sun, yet how enchanting is a moon light scene ; 
and if the glorious sun should suddenly and unexpect- 
edly arise in its splendor to chase the illusions of the 
scene, would it not excite a sensation similar to what 
is felt at the entrance of an unwelcome visiter. That 
Jesus is the "Son of God," is given as matter of fact, 



OF THOUGHT. 161 

it is given also as the foundation of the church. "Peter 
"saith unto him, thou art the Christ, the Son of the liv- 
ing God. Jesus saith, On this rock will I build my 
"church." If this fact, or truth, be the foundation of 
the church, it must be plain and palpable ; if it were an 
incomprehensible mystery, it were then an unfathomable 
deep, that would swallow up the church. 

But there is still enough of mystery connected with 
this subject to gratify a reasonable love of the sublime. 
What subject is it, either in nature or in grace, that is 
not mysterious, when we attempt to look through the 
phenomena into the invisible world. But the "myste- 
ries" of the gospel are not all represented as incompre- 
hensible things ; we are not forbidden to approach them 
with the understanding's eye. The parable of the 
* ( sower" is one of these mysteriesj, but it was intended 
for instruction, for a light, a * <candle," which was not 
iutended to be put "under a bushel." The disciples 
asked their master after he had spoken this parable, 
why he spake to the multitude in parables ; and he an- 
swered, "It is given to you to lenow the mysteries of 
"the kingdom of heaven, but to them that are without it 
"is not given." 

It seems then from the scriptures themselves, that a 
'mystery" is not a thing which is necessarily, or in its 
nature, incomprehensible, or wholly without the sphere 
of human investigation. A subject is sometimes ren- 
dered mysterious, by the application of the same word, 
to things which are circumstantially different, though 
essentially the same. The apostle John observes, "No 
"man hath seen God at any time." Yet our Lord says, 
"He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." These 
two affirmations, though apparently contradictory, must 
be perfectly reconcilable, for they are from the lips of 
21 



162 THE ALPHABET OF THOUGHT. 

truth itself. And they have a parallel in the common 
and familiar language of life. It is common to say we see 
substances, but it is well known that we do not see sub- 
stances, that is, we do not see them with the bodily eye; 
yet we do perceive them with the eye of reason ; and it 
is true, that whoever sees the phenomena or operati ks 
of a substance, perceives the substance. "He that hath 
"seen me, hath seen the Father," that is, he that hath 
seen or discerned the real character of the "Son," that 
he is holy, and just, and good, and wise, hath seen the 
real character of the "Father," that He is holy, aad 
just, and good, and wise. He who hath seen the opera- 
tion of the Father, hath seen the Father, or the efficient 
cause of the operation. 

The written word of God, consists of the artificial 
signs by which He makes himself known; but the 
operation is the natural sign, or natural word. The 
children of men are favored with both these signs. 
"God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake 
"in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in 
"these last days spoken unto us by His Son." The 
prophets conveyed to us the knowledge of God by 
words, or artificial signs ; but in the "Son" we have 
the natural sign, the express image, the very thoughts, 
feelings, and actions of the Most High exhibited before 
our eyes. "The Father who dwelleth in me, He doeth 
"the works." He condescends to exhibit to us the very 
manner of His thinking, feeling, speaking and acting. 

We have endeavored to touch this subject as cauti- 
ously and as lightly as might be, consistently with per- 
spicuity, and with fidelity to the cause of truth. It had 
not been touched on at all, but that the subject of the 
constitution of the divine Essence, was necessarily in- 
volved in the subject of the elementary principles of 
metaphysics. 



CONGRESS 




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